Being Educated To Live A Healthy Life

 

     In order to live a healthy life, it is important for one to be educated on how to do so.  It is hard to educate young children on what is considered healthy especially when it comes to making the right choices for food.  Therefore, the parents should be educated enough to know what is nutritional and what is not for their children.  In 106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney by William Speed Weed from Popular Science, they talk about how much knowledge an average American has about "science."  Science includes many things including learning about nutrition.  When it comes to childhood obesity, being educated about nutrition is very important.  This helps with the diet that should be carried on especially for someone who has a risk of obesity whether it is a child or an adult.  The key thing to a healthy diet is to be able to understand what certain things mean especially when it comes to different advertisements which claim that their product is healthy.  Some food may be healthy, but thinking of the long term maybe not so much.  When it comes to making the right choice your children and yourself, it is important to think outside of the box because what you see could be temporarily true, but not necessary healthy in the long run.  As the book mentioned, even when it comes to going grocery shopping, it is important to understand words in the nutritional facts because it can say "healthy" on the package, but it could not be healthy.
     According to Popular Science, Americans are not being educated enough about how to evaluate food and how to make the right choice.  This issue has been taken into consideration by government officials and healthcare officials.  Many political leaders are forcing parents and children to start eating healthy such as Michelle Obama.  Along with that school officials are also in the process of making school cafeterias healthier by removing vending machines.  As parents, role models, and ideals it is very important for children to follow right foot steps.  If parents set a healthy guide line for children then childhood obesity rate has a chance of being decreased.  Along with eating healthy, other factors also play a role in decreasing childhood obesity like the past blogs have mentioned.  Childhood obesity is a major issue and it is creating future health problems and therefore everyone should try to their best to contribute in decreasing childhood obesity.

Resources:

Weed, William Speed. "106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney." Popular Science264, no. 5 (2004)

Mind Body Medicine Combats Childhood Obesity

Like mentioned earlier childhood obesity is a very serious issue.  There are many things being done to help decrease childhood obesity.  One important technique I came across was mind body medicine.  During the past semester I learned that mind body medicine helps with many health risks and its amazing to see that it helps with childhood obesity as well.  According to online source, mind body medicine has a lot to do with imagining and being aware of things.  It is said that "what you are imagining right now will be what your life gives in the future."  Therefore that message is put out there so that individuals can start thinking in a positive manner.  This message is important for those that are at a risk for obesity because sometimes their self esteem is lowered.  One needs to mentally prepare yourself so that they can lose weight and the only way to do this is by thinking what you want your future to be like.  Mind-body techniques such as imagery and visualization help with losing weight by the food you chose to eat.  Being mindful while eating also helps because you are being aware of what you are eating and this helps with not eating so much.  Mind body medicine directly effects the hypothalamus which regulates the autonomic nervous system.  Autonomic nervous system relates to how our body responds to feelings and our thinking.  If we are relaxed then our body responds to our thinking and feelings in a positive manner therefore we can also be calm while we are eating and be aware of what we eat.  Many times people eat due to stress and they do not realize how much they are gaining out of that.  This is one of the main reasons as to why mind body medicine techniques are helpful when it comes to decreasing childhood obesity.

Resources:

http://www.holistic-online.com/remedies/weight/weight_mind-body-medicine-for-obesity.htm

FAQs

How do you know if a child is overweight or obese?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a child is considered to be overweight or obese based on the BMI which is the body mass index.  Normally if the child has a greater BMI than 85% then the child is considered over weight.  If the BMI is greater than 95% then the child is considered obese.  To measure the BMI all that is needed is the child's height and weight.  Use this website http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/ to know if your child is overweight/obese or not.

What causes a child to become overweight or obese?
Many children are obese due to the fact that they have a medical condition such as under active thyroid gland or some sort of other diseases which leads to childhood obesity.  The reason why majority of the children are overweight though is because they do not burn off more calories than they intake.  This is part of behavioral factors that play a role in childhood obesity. Behavioral factors include: eating habits, lack of physical activity, social norms, and parenting styles.  All these contribute towards childhood obesity.  There are also genetic factors which lead to childhood obesity.  One key thing about genetic factors is that genetic factors alone do not play a role in leading towards a child being obese.  It is usually paired with one of the behavior factors.  Environmental factors that lead to childhood obesity have to do with how children are interacting at school or even daycare programs.  It also consists of how the community affects the child's eating habits or their physical activity.

How can you prevent your child from becoming overweight or obese?
The best way to prevent your child from becoming overweight or obese is by training them to be healthy early on in the age. Try making healthy vegetables and fruits appealing to a child at a younger age such as 2 rather than 6 because by age 6 they are not going to want to be interested in fruits or vegetables.  Also, as a parent you are their role model therefore your eating habits and physical activity plans should be healthy enough to make the children do the same.  Also keep your child involved in family activities so they can have a healthy lifestyle.

Why is it risky for a child to be obese?
A child being obese has long term and short term risks.  Childhood obesity can lead towards type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and even liver diseases.  Long term risks including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even depression.  If childhood obesity continues at the rate that it is going, then it can lead to their generation being less healthy in the future than their own parents.

Resources:
http://www.childrensnational.org/DepartmentsAndPrograms/default.aspx?Type=Program&id=6117&SubType=ResourceForFamily&SubId=346&Name=Obesity%20Clinic&Subname=Childhood%20Obesity:%20Frequently%20asked%20questions
http://www.nichq.org/advocacy/advocacy%20documents/FAQ_Childhood-Obesity.pdf
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/childhood_obesity_overweight_quiz_iq/faq.htm

Public Perceptions of Childhood Obesity

    American Journal of Preventive Medicine published an article regarding the "public perceptions of childhood obesity."  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recognized childhood obesity has an epidemic and that it has been considered a major health threat.  The public is starting to now realize what health risks are possible because of childhood obesity.  This article includes studies that were done to be able to see how severe the public thought childhood obesity was and also to see what strategies the public supports to help in getting rid of childhood obesity.  

    The results showed that majority of the people are viewing childhood obesity as a serious health issue comparable to tobacco use and violence, but the article mentions that childhood obesity is not as serious as drug abuse.  More than 55% believed that childhood obesity was not as serious as drug abuse.  The fact that childhood obesity was not considered as serious as drug abuse, it was a little disappointing because many children with childhood obesity end up in the category of drug abuse.  The public supported many school and media based strategies to help with childhood obesity.  Though the public is participating in helping reduce childhood obesity, they opposed to regulatory tax or cost based interventions.  The public should be willing to spend the money on children and their healthy life because the children today are the next generation.  According to the article almost 59% of respondents did not agree to increasing fast food costs that was targeted towards children.  If fast food prices were increased slightly then that would stop children from spending money on fast food and also would stop parents from providing fast food to their children.  Also, 69% opposed to removing vending machines from school.  Having vending machines in school is a good idea if the school started including healthy snacks and drinks instead of junk food and soda.

    The public does support school and community interventions such as increasing physical activity options for children so that they can start becoming active again instead of watching television all day.  Even though the public supports that, according to the article the public is not willing to contribute to the cost of increasing such options for children.  Is there a way to convince parents/community that health of the children important and steps towards eliminating childhood obesity need to be enforced more than they have already been.

Resources:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379704002478

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2012/0816/20120816__childhood-obesity-laws~p1_300.jpg

"Let's Move" -Michelle Obama

On February 9th, 2010, Michelle Obama announced a very important program called "Let's Move."  This program was established by the first lady after realizing that the obesity rate in children was increasing in the United States.   Michelle Obama’s idea behind this campaign was so that the general public would be encouraged to be involved in improving the health of the younger generation of the United States. By creating this program/campaign, Michelle Obama had targets towards"getting parents more informed about nutrition and exercise, improving the quality of food in schools, making healthy foods more affordable and accessible for families, and focusing more on physical education."  For all this to happen, many people play a significant role to be successful with this goal. This includes people that are part of the government, schools, health care professionals, and even community based organizations. In regard to the federal government playing a role in decreasing childhood obesity, Michelle Obama also mentioned that President Obama plans to "reauthorize the Children Nutrition Act."  This act is basically offering about a $10 billion budget increase over a 10 year period so that schools can provide children with healthier school lunches. 

The first lady also mentions that majority of the children’s calories do come from school and therefore along with schools providing healthier lunches, schools should also focus of physical activity.  There are many schools in the United States that do not have Physical Education mandatory for their kids.  This is very unhealthy because the kids are not able to burn off their calories.  Many of the reasons why Physical Education and recesses are being cut is because of budget cuts and therefore this also plays a role in childhood obesity.

            Along with working with the federal government and school officials, the first lady also is trying to work with families to help them come up with a strategy that will help them.  As being a famous political leader, do you believe Michelle Obama’s campaign will make a difference to those families who have children suffering obesity?  Many families are not as educated about childhood obesity as they should be, so therefore seeing someone famous concerned about it can influence their thinking.  There is also a website for the “Let’s Move” campaign that needs to be advertised more so that the general public can get a better understanding.

Woman's Diet During Pregnancy Affect Childhood Obesity?

Can a woman’s diet during pregnancy affect the child’s risk of being obese?  This has been a concern for many people now days, especially those trying to start a family.  Many researches have shown that a woman’s diet during pregnancy definitely affects the child’s risk of becoming obese later on in life.  According to the article in Medical News Today, a study was performed by the Southampton University in UK to search the relation between maternal diet and the baby’s obesity risk.  They found something called “epigenetic change alters the function of unborn baby’s DNA in response to changes in the mother’s diet.”   The way these changes can actually be seen are through the epigenetic markers which are found at the umbilical cord at birth.  According to this study, they mentioned that animals had already been tested on before and it showed that the mother’s diet affected the offspring’s “body composition.”  The most interesting part of this study was that that the researchers were able to predict the fatness variation in over 300 children by the time they were at age 6 or 9. Mother’s nutrition affects the child’s epigenetic and that leads to risks of childhood obesity.  

Resources:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/222881.php

Building baby: diet during pregnancy | A film by the Wellcome Trust