Paper On Childhood Obesity

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Brandi Williams ECE 122 Research Paper on Childhood Obesity Childhood obesity is an important issue because of the epidemic it has become in the United States. The rate that this disease has reached in the past few years is outstanding and horrible to say the least. Certain genetic factors paired with changing lifestyles and culture has produced kids and adults who are generally not as healthy as people were just a few decades ago. Widespread obesity has been the extreme result of these changes. I chose this topic because I have struggled with obesity my whole life, I remember getting teased and bullied because of the way my body looked and lowered my self-esteem tremendously. Now that I have five children, two of whom also struggle…show more content…
In Washington state alone children age 2 -5 were 18.4% were overweight and 14.4% were considered obese. Obesity is a major risk factor for many serious health conditions including type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure and certain cancers, and among youth these diseases are at an all-time high. The most striking fact to me is that during the past 40 years obesity rates for children age 3-11 nearly tripled from 5% to 14$ and more than tripled for adolescents age 12-19 n from 5% top 17.1%. Some of the causes as stated on the National Heart Lung and blood Institute were lack of exercise, oversize food portions, lack of access to healthy food, food advertising, and parents work schedules. Also some common factors such as genetics and cultural environment experts have agreed that are a cause of childhood obesity. Understanding nutrition and how food is processed is one way to understand the causes of obesity. Scientist are learning more about genetics and how the food gets processed in the body every…show more content…
Prevention strategies for parents are set limits on TV and computer time, offer healthier foods, assign active chores such as mowing the lawn or mopping the floor, be a healthy role model for your children and eat meals together at the dinner table and limit fast foods or microwavable foods to no more than once a week. Another reason I wanted to do this research paper is to see how I who is going to be a teacher soon can help prevent this disease that is hurting our children. Some suggestions that I found were as teachers we can plan some form of movement into the classroom curriculum, ask parents to bring healthy snacks, do not punish students by taking away recess, have a nutritionist come visit classroom and speak to the children about the importance of healthy eating and regular
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