Obesity in Children
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation plans to spend $500 million dollars to help eradicate childhood obesity in the United States.
Obesity among children is now an epidemic with 25 million kids under the age of 17 obese.
It is not only the ridicule these children endure on a daily basis because of their weight, it also comes with many health risks usually only seen in adults like high cholesterol, type II diabetes, heart disease and the fact that many are going to die young because of these factors.
Factors that can lead some child to become obese are overweight or obese parents, low physical activity, live in low income, urban areas and
heredity.
Prevention not treatment is the best way to fight childhood obesity. Education of pregnant mothers on diet, food groups and exercise and I think, programs that can take these women to grocery stores and show them how to shop on a limited budget. Physical Education needs to be mandatory in all schools for kids. Schools need to have a better balanced meal plans for students. Computer, video games and television times have to be monitored.
This funding from The Robert Wood Foundation I hope will tackle some of these issues and help, but more help is needed. What do you think we can do to eradicate this problem with our children?
childhood obesity, obesity, children, overweight children, type II diabetes, school programs, school lunches, parents
April 19th, 2007 at 2:17 am
[...] Cultural perceptions of fat April 19th, 2007 by Gillian Polack This is just the quickest of posts because I was just reading a post by Erinn in Parenting our Children and it made me think about my post yesterday. (I don’t know why 50% of my readers quaver in fear and hide under beds when I say “it made me think.” It’s a mystery to me.) [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 8:48 am
[...] am fully aware of the childhood obesity problem in this country. I understand how and what you eat as a [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[...] vegetable eaten by toddlers? French fries. That shouldn’t be so shocking considering the childhood obesity epidemic. What can you do to build your child’s healthy eating habits? Here are some [...]