Angel 1

Lexxi Angel

Professor Nate Hellmers

English 1201

26 March 2017

Parents: The Cause of Childhood Obesity

In todays society, approximately one in five children are considered to be obese.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention The percentage of children with

obesity in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s. They define obesity as

having an excessive amount of body fat and overweight as having too much body fat for your

size, sex and age. Childhood obesity's main cause is from high calorie intake and not enough

energy expelled by the child. An example would be a child who eats an abundance of high

calorie or high in sugar foods but does not partake in any type of physical activity. Therefore,

parents should be taking more responsibility in their child's eating habits as obesity can cause

major physiological and health issues as the child grows.

Jessica Firger of CBS News writes that obesity can be classified three ways; Class 1,

Class 2 and Class 3. Class one includes children who are overweight; they have a BMI or body

max index in the 85th percentile. Classes two and three include children who are obese; having a

BMI of 120 and 140 which are both included the 95th percentile. These statistics come from The
 Angel 2

National Health and Examination Survey published by JAMA Pediatrics. The percentages were

calculated using children between the ages of 2-19 totalling 26,690 children. The information

was compiled over a 14 year period, 1999-2012..

In todays society the majority of overweight and obese children are in grade school. This

is a time in a child's life where the parents should be making better choices in the foods their

children eat. Instead these children are being fed processed foods. These processed foods contain

high amounts of salt and sugar. If the parents of these obese children would pay more attention to

what food they are feeding their children and not letting them decide or making the poor choices

themselves the children would be happier and healthier.

Parents are the main cause of childhood obesity. One way that they are causing their

children to become obese is always making their child finish their meal even when they say they

are full. There are parents who think that their child is too thin and need some meat on their

bones and they want them to put on some weight. These children can grow up believing that

they must always finish everything on their plates and it is causing them to gain massive amounts

of weight when their metabolism slows down as they grow older. The same can happen to

children whose parents reward their child with food for good behavior. The children expect food

when they do something good and eventually grow up rewarding themselves with food when
 Angel 3

they are adults. Both of these causes are considered Learned Behaviors which are behaviors

that do not come natural to someone and are one of the hardest habits to break.

As demonstrated in the photo above along with nutrition parents are causing obesity in

children by letting let their child sit inside and play games instead of making them go outdoors to

play. This happens because it is less work for the parents to just let their child sit in front of a

television where they are easier to monitor then it is to make them go outside to play where is

takes more effort to monitor them. Because these children are not regularly exercising; if

exercising at all, it means that they are gaining unhealthy weight. If parents would enroll their

children into sports then that would make the child more active and they could have fun

participating. Another way of getting them to exercise would be to talk with teachers in the
 Angel 4

school system to help find ways to make their child more active while at school. Parents could

also take a more active role and take their children to a nearby park or by simply taking walks

around their neighborhoods.

The majority of families who are not making their kids get enough exercise are low

income families. This is why the majority of obese children are in low income families. This is

mainly due to the fact that they simply do not have enough income to pay for their child to

participate in a sport. Along with not being able to pay to be involved in a sport they also believe

that they are unable to afford the nutritious foods their child needs. These parents believe that it

is cheaper to buy fast food because it is quick and easy but in the end the children are suffering

because they are eating meals that have higher calorie counts and sugar counts than

non-processed homemade meals. These families think they are saving their money but in the end

they will be spending more because health care for obese children is higher than that of a fit child

who participates in some type of sport.

Another group of people who need to watch their intake of fast food is expectant mothers.

These mothers are impacting their child when they are not even born and most probably do not

realize it. As cited by Trandafir, L. M of the US National Library of Medicine Maternal obesity

and gestational weight gain are associated with foetal macrosomia and childhood obesity, and

this effect extends into adulthood. If an expectant mother does not monitor her sugar and calorie
 Angel 5

intake then the baby could be born unhealthy and overweight. Mothers who feed their babies

formula food are also hurting their child because formula food is more unhealthy than breast

feeding. The more the mother feeds their baby formula food the more more likely the baby will

grow up overweight.

It is not just expectant mothers who need to monitor their eating habits normal parents

should as well. When children are young they are easily influenced; when they see their parent

eating unhealthy they believe that should be able to also. It shows that when a parent does not

care what they are putting into their bodies then they do not care about what they are putting into

their childs either. Overweight parents often have overweight children because they share their

bad eating habits with their children. These children grow up believing that it is okay to

constantly eat junk food because they see their parents do it all the time and they grow up with

those same eating habits. So if parents would just put more care into their own eating habits then

in turn the child would be healthier and happier.

Along with of the children being unhappy because they are unhealthy there are many

health issues that pursue when a child is obese. According to The Obesity Society one of these

health issues is asthma which makes it hard for the child to breath normally. Another effect is

type two diabetes which according to WebMD is when your body can not use the insulin as

much but the body still produces it and the extra sugar will build up inside your cells. So in the
 Angel 6

end the childs body would become insulin resistant. Type two diabetes is always untreatable and

the child will have it for the rest of their lives. It can also cause the child to gain large amounts of

weight very easily.

Besides major health issues there are also some psychological issues that children can get

when obese. One large issue is depression which is usually caused when a child has very low self

esteem and a very poor self body image because they are getting made fun of for being

overweight by their peers. Children who are obese are also at a very high risk for an eating

disorder. Some overweight children will go to school and get picked on and made fun of, they

will then feel the need to lose weight. They do not always lose the weight in a healthy way. The

children this happens to will more than likely go onto the internet and search fast ways of losing

weight even if it means they could be endangering themselves both mentally and physically.

On the contrary, parents are not the only cause of childhood obesity. There are other

factors that could be involved. Sometimes it could be hereditary; meaning the child is going to

gain weight no matter what unless they are closely monitored. According to the Obesity Society

there is a rare single gene mutation that can cause the child to gain weight fairly easy. There is

also a rare imbalance of the hormones in a child that will cause them to gain weight at a very

high rate.
 Angel 7

In conclusion, if parents would just take additional time out of their day and put in more

effort then there would be less cases of childhood obesity. For instance; if a parent would cook

homemade nutritious meals instead of buying fast food it would make their child healthier.

Parents could also stop rewarding their child with high calorie sugary foods every time they do

something good. They could instead reward them with a healthier sweet alternative such as

fruits. Parents could also just pay attention to when their child says they are full and stop making

them finish their entire meal. If parents would do these simple things they would be raising

happier, healthier children.

 Angel 8

Works Cited

Brody, Jane E. "Prudent Ways to Fight Childhood Obesity." The New York Times. The New

York

Times, 22 June 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

"Causes and Risks for Obesity in children." MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.Us

National Library of Medicine, 31 Aug. 2016. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

"Childhood Overweight." Childhood Overweight - The Obesity Society. N.p., n.d. Web.

13 Apr. 2017.

"Childhood Obesity Facts." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, 25 Jan. 2017. Web. 04 Mar. 2017

"Child obesity '35-40 percent' inherited from parents." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 Feb.

2017. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Firger, Jessica. "Severe childhood obesity on the rise in U.S., study shows." CBS News. CBS

Interactive, 07 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.

Huffman, Fatma G., Sankarabharan Kanikireddy, and Manthan Patel. "ParenthoodA

Contributing Factor to Childhood Obesity." International Journal of Environmental

Research and Public Health. Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI), 30

July 2010. Web. 05 Mar. 2017.

Trandafir, L. M. and O. R. Temneanu. "Pre and Post-Natal Risk and Determination of Factors for

Child Obesity." Journal of Medicine & Life, vol. 9, no. 4, Oct-Dec2016, pp. 386-391.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.22336/jml.2016.0412.
 Angel 9

"Type 2 Diabetes: The Basics." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.