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

Psychological Effects Due to Childhood Obesity

      Childhood Obesity can lead to many consequences, one of them being Psychological Effects. Psychological Effects include: low self-esteem, depression, and social discrimination.  By being overweight children can have low-self esteem because they feel that they are not as important as everyone else.  When they are being judged through people because they are obese, it affects their confidence and that leads to low-self esteem.  It leads to social discrimination as well because they will feel excluded from their friend group in school.  They want to be able to do everyday activities that normal school kids do, but since they are overweight it can limit them from doing certain activities.  The culture, society and the social media we are all part of also plays an important role in children that are obese.  They portray an ideal girl to look slim and fit, and ideal boy to look buff and muscular.  When a certain individual realizes that they do not fit this criteria, they start looking down upon themselves.  When they start disliking how they are then it leads to serious issues.  All of this can lead to one big problem which is depression.  Children going through such issues at a young age is not healthy at all for their future.  One psychological effect can lead to plenty more and it is just an on going cycle.  If we think back to when we were younger, as kids we were offended by little things so try putting your feet in shoes of those kids that are constantly picked on for being obese and think how would you feel? How can we change such a situation?

Resources:

http://www.buzzle.com/img/articleImages/544549-30728-29.jpg

http://www.mississippisfinest.net/health7.jpg

http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/childhood_obesity_effects_physical_mental_health