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://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2012/0816/20120816__childhood-obesity-laws~p1_300.jpg
It is interesting to see the analogy of child obesity with tobacco use and drug use. I can see how both ideas can be similar. Both can cause serious damage to someone's health. Both show an addiction to some sort of object whether it be food for the obese child and drugs/tobacco for the drug addict. In order to overcome these obsessions, one needs to go through therapy and instruction of how to replace these urges. Tobacco use and childhood obesity are two things that may not show adverse effects right away, but with time both will affect the heart, blood pressure and cause many other health issues. I can see how some may believe these ideas to be similar.
ReplyDeleteOn my blog regarding Public Health I mentioned in one of the post that childhood obesity is the top health problem recognized by the population. I think the next step would be to take steps to prevent and treat childhood obesity. Unhealthy food is always going to be there, I think what we should try to do is help these children realize whats health and unhealthy. As I am sitting here in JP Licks I see lots of young children consuming ice cream., it is impossible to completely get rid of junk food. However, we should help them realizes that eating a little bit ice cream is okay, however having ice cream as meal is unhealthy. It is important to teach children to balance their food intake and help then understand whats good for them, and what is not. After a certain age, all children make their own decision on what they consume, and parents and guardians should teach their children at a young age between what is health and what is unhealthy.
ReplyDelete