Free Essay About Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is a major public health concern both locally and foreign. Developed countries are affected the worse (Maxfield 443). Recently, spotting an obese child in your locality is not a difficult task at all. The prevalence of this crisis is noticeable for over years. It is created by the daily imbalance between calories utilized to those that are taken. This is the main cause, though others like genetic, environmental and behavioral can also cause obesity. Obesity has vast effects which are physical, social health problems and psychological. The government uses billions of US dollars in treating obesity-related illness in both children and even adults. The government has not found effective intervention to address childhood obesity.
Among the issues of childhood, obesity is believed to be most serious but very common in the United States. The effect of obesity is evident across the population (Pollan, 437). Childhood obesity can be a serious condition that affects our children and teens. It can result in a number of serious health problems including diabetes. Failing to take proper physical exercise can also lead to depression and lower self-confidence. These are serious problems that the government should not allow our future generation to be possessing. It has become a national problem that the first lady, Michelle Obama, initiated a heroic plan to end obesity in childhood.
Some would completely blame the type of parenting we are giving our loved ones. However, much of the blame should be directed towards the government. The policy arm of the government needed to work hard to reduce obesity (Balko 2). The following factors support my decision to instead blame the government.
United States government has licensed many fast food vendors who do not even adhere to licensing term and conditions assuming they are in there. In any town, for example, you can easily spot one of the 13 000 McDonald’ restaurants, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and many more. Surprising, healthy food such as fruits and greens are very difficult to locate. To some people purchasing a fried chicken is easy than entering a hotel and asks for very sweet and healthy greens for your lunch. Junk food is blamed for the rise of obesity (Warner 3). On the other hand, the government has increased its budget yearly. Such an increase is not, in my opinion, the government through the ministry of health should put strict regulations that the food vendors must adhere to.
The government has allowed most of the companies selling junk food to advertise on television, social media and even billboards. The kind of information they are relaying to consumers is imperfect and misleading. For example, Taco Bell’s website records its chicken mixed greens as containing about 150 calories; the almonds and noodles that accompany it are recorded independently. However, that is not all. Peruse the little print on the back of the packet. On the off chance that you pour what you've been served, you're all of a sudden up around 1,040 calories, which is a large portion of the administrations prescribed everyday calorie consumption. What's doesn't consider that 450-calorie super-size coke. The government must curb these misleading advertisement or we will have unhealthy children.
As seen in the figure above, the amount of food at fast food restaurants that meets people’s nutritional needs is very low. As indicated by the black line, most items are high in calories versus the short purple line which indicates the percent of fast foods menu items that meet all criteria for nutrition.
Childhood obesity is a genuine therapeutic condition that both kids and teenagers suffer from. A child is considered obese when their weight exceeds a certain amount in relation to their height. Childhood obesity is a scary epidemic because it has the potential to cause many more issues such as elevated cholesterol, type 1 or 2 diabetes, hypertension and other obesity related issues. Issues like these were once almost exclusively an adult issue. Childhood obesity can cause children to suffer being teased, as well as cause them to have low self-esteem. One of the best ways we could decrease Childhood obesity is to pay more attention to what children eat, and increase activity within the entire family unit. By getting childhood obesity under control, the well-being of our children will ultimately increase.
This is the wrong approach to battle obesity. As opposed to controlling or mediating in the show of sustenance alternatives accessible to American consumers, our government should be attempting to encourage an awareness of other's expectations in and responsibility for own well-being and prosperity. Instead, they are doing the polar opposite.
The ideal way of controlling the childhood obesity from public health is to expel obesity from the domain of public health. It doesn't have to be placed there at any rate. It just turns into an open matter when we compel the general population to pay for the outcomes of those decisions. In the event that policymakers need to battle obesity, they'll end the crawling socialization of pharmaceutical, and move to return individual Americans' responsibility for own well-being and prosperity back to individual Americans. Awareness helps reduce the spread of obesity (Zinczenko 2). That implies liberating insurance agencies to compensate sound ways of life, and punish poor ones. It means stopping arrangements to further standardize prescription and medicinal services.
People presently have awareness of the unhealthy foods. Some people have consequently adjusted their diet by having more intakes of healthy foods than the unhealthy ones as show in the figure above.
 

Works Cited

Harris, Jennifer. Fast food FACTS 2013. Yale: Rudd Center for food and policy and Obesity.
Mary, Maxfield. Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of eating: pg.442-447.
Michael, Pollan. Escape from the western diet: pg.434-442.
Radley, Balko. What you eat is your business: Policy analyst with CATO institute, May 23rd 2004.
Judith Warmer. Junking Junk food: the New York Times, Nov 25th, 2010.
David, Zinczenko. Don’t blame the eater, November 23rd, 2002.