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Childhood Obesity

“It is just staggering…this whole epidemic of obesity is sweeping across the country!” (DeNoon). More and more children are becoming obese as families are eating out regularly and food portions are increasing. There is also a great decrease in physical activity among children, leaving the excess calories children are consuming to be stored as fat (DeNoon). Dr. Tim Crowe states that obesity is “so serious that a group of children are not going to outlive their parents” (“Fight on Fat”). Furthermore, children who are obese are likely to be obese as adults (Torgan). Although childhood obesity may seem of concern only to a small group of parents, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about the welfare of themselves and half the population (DeNoon). We need to stop this epidemic to prevent health risks and social discrimination among many people in the population, and the best way to stop this epidemic is to prevent obesity in children. To prevent childhood obesity, parents should be role models for their children and make their diets and physical lifestyles healthier. In addition, children should learn how to eat healthy and get enough physical exercise.
Researchers are finding many causes for obesity (Kendall). They found that both genetics and environment contributes to obesity (Kendall). Researchers determined that genetics account for about 5 to 25 percent of the cause of obesity; therefore, the environment plays the largest role (Kendall). Many studies have found that genes and the environment may interact with each other because “children with obese parents are more likely to be obese” (Kendall). Parents may give children the genes that cause obesity, and they may also raise children in an environment that causes obesity. Since the environment contributes to obesity more than genetics, I find that it makes it very realistic for parents to prevent obesity in their children. There is a large chance that no matter what genes a child is born with, his or her...