What Are The Causes Of Childhood Obesity Health Essay

What Are The Causes Of Childhood Obesity Health Essay Throughout the years, obesity has been a very important topic in our society and has risen exponentially among children and many researchers have wondered what are the causes of childhood obesity. There are many components which contribute to the causes of child obesity. Also people need to understand what exactly is body-mass-index and how it will be used to decide whether the child is categorized as being obese or not. Here are the some of the primary causes that affect children leading into obsession. The children consume so much food, are exposed to too many advertisements, lack physical activity, parents influence their actions, and the childrens living environments and socioeconomic factors influence them. Many blame that children eat beyond their control and this happens to be the number one cause. The second cause is children are exposed too many food commercials of less healthy foods and eventually are convinced into consuming the product. The third reason is children tend t o lack physical activity by rather spending countless hours playing video games and browsing the internet. The fourth cause is that the children parents influences them, and the genetics of the parents is a great influence on childrens overweight and obesity. The last cause is the childs living environment and their socioeconomic status influences their decisions and actions. These are the main components that lead into causing obesity among the children. What factors make children to be considered obese from a normal weight. What is obesity and BMI? Typically, obesity and overweight children are characterized as having a body-mass-index (BMI) greater than a particular threshold set point. BMI or body-mass-index undistinguished as a measurement in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (kg/m2) (Anderson 20). Reported by the guidelines in National Institutes of Health, a child is well categorized as obese if their body-mass-index is less than 18.5, the kids are considered overweight if their BMI is 25 or more, and obese if his BMI is 31 or more (20). Most people have no significant idea of what exactly is obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control and prevention, obesity is defined as a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced 6 life expectancy and/or increased health problems (CDC, 2013). In the article Childhood Obesity: An Overview, it mentions that it can happen only when the number of calories being consumed surpasses the quantity of calories burned, and usually an increase of this action has to last for long periods of time for obesity to be developed (Reily 2007) In order for a child to not be obese, it will take them days of lifestyle changes which produce a small every day calorie deficiency in their food diet. In the long run it is necessity that lifestyle changes is a huge contributor to the failure of efforts to resolve obesity once it has become established. When the children consume much more calories than they burn off, they increase that as obese weight. (WebMD 1) How children eat, how physically active they are, and many numerous components play a part on how it impacts their body and uses the energy units and when weight is increased. These are the basics of obesity and how the body-mass index is use to classified children as obese. The number one cause is children intake way too much unhealthy food products such as soft drinks, fast food, convenient snack food, chips, and junk food, etc. When the children eat this certain type of food, the calories sum up creating body fat or also known as BMI. Most children tend to miss a great diet and are easily exposed to unhealthy food; therefore, they will consume as they are pleased (Anderson and Butcher 14). The three major food categories are convenience foods, soft drinks, and obviously fast food. All these are calorie dense and there is some evidence that consuming these items are correlated with obesity in children (35). Also the much more children consume this type of food, the easier it is for them to get addicted. The worlds leading global fast food service retailer with more than 34,000 and counting restaurants worldwide goes to the McDonalds Corporation franchise and they happened to sell the two unhealthiest leading food products that causes obesity, which are french fries and chicken nuggets (McDonalds 1). Nevertheless, children tend to always eat them at any fast food place. They cannot enjoy their meal without a side of french fries or chicken tenders. Another thing children face are the easy access to junk food in schools. Much more schools across America have carried out school vending machines that contain highly calorie snacks such as candy bars and chips. Fast food companies use tactics against children such as advertising to brain wash them to consume their food products. The second cause leading to child obesity is that many of the children that end getting overweight are exposed to hundreds of advertising of unhealthy foods. The television advertisements are very influential and persuasive to the childrens mind. On average, the child watches an estimate of more than 23,000 food commercials every year and works out to at least 60 commercials per day (Anderson and Butcher 32). Also many children get influenced by prizes or characters of the advertisement. For example, when children see an advertisement on the television for a kids meal; they will get convinced into buying the meal because their neurons urges the kid to wan the super, marvelous action figure found inside. This is why the McDonalds Happy meals are the number one selling food product to children. The children in todays society tend to not do physical activities because their days consist of computer and television interaction. Another cause to child obesity is that many obese children do not control their overall health and lack physical activity to burn off the excess of calories. Children may be substituting different sorts of media for television watching, including video games and the internet (Anderson and Butcher 26). The kids already are not burning up the calories by not choosing to exercise and add many more calories to their bodies. The body systems of the child will not be able to burn off the calories when they do this actions. Thus, this cause raises the energy consumption or decreases energy outgo by even a little measure that will cause obesity in the long-run. Prospectively, physical activity was inversely related to with BMI alteration in girls, and media time periods (watching television or videos, playing video or computer games) was directly connected with BMI alterations in both sexes (Hans-Reiner Figulla 209). A factor that many really dont notice that affect the child health choices are the parents themselves. A cause that usually is not taken in consideration to child obesity are the parents themselves. While parental behavior is important, perhaps the largest influence on the children weight, and obesity is through genetics. For example, it is known that parents influence the childrens food choices. Also the laboring of the parents, makes it difficult to plan and cook healthier meals. For most Americans, it is effortless to get precooked products, eat out in the restaurants, or go to the store to buy products. But these types of foods are higher in fat and high in calories. The quantity of fast food products have gotten a lot bigger in size and this contributes to bad food consumption. Occupation agendas, lengthy travels from the workplace, and other commitments also cuts into the time period the parents have their kids doing physical exercise. Recent reports have concluded that about 26 to 41 percent of BMI is hereditary (Anderson and Butcher 10). Alternately it seems that parents may p ass on to their children a condition to overweight in the existence of energy imbalance. (10) The environment in which the children live can also influence and effect children to getting obese. The fifth cause is that is taken in consideration to child obesity is the environment and socioeconomic conditions of the children. Obesity is higher among minority children and low-income children such as African-American and Hispanics decent (Anderson 15). It all the depends where the children live. If the environment is under poverty conditions, the parents will most likely expose their children to consume cheap food for the penny. Now much more fast food corporations have increased their portion sizes of their products and cost a lot cheaper. Whose family members that are overweight may be at jeopardy of becoming overweight themselves, but this can be connected to common family actions such as consumption and human activity habits. For example, my mother was a considerably overweight at the time of pregnancy when she had me; therefore I was born obesity and I was two pounds overweight. In conclusion, these are some of the major components that cause child obesity. Most of the time it isnt just the child itself but there are much more to what causes obesity among them. Also most dont realize that by using the body mass index or BMI is used to categorized the child as being obese. The obvious one is when the child over eats too much and doesnt burn off the calories they intake and that add fat weight on their bodies. Many people also didnt realize that the environment the child lives in can not only influence the children but also their parents. It is mainly the childs environment that influences the children to either make positive or negative choices. The causes are child obesity are clearly that they consume so much food, are exposed to too many advertisements, lack physical activity performance, parents influence their actions, and the childrens living environments and socioeconomic factors influence them as well.

Roy Cohn from Angels in America :: Personal Narrative Writing

Roy Cohn from Angels in America The trip to Brooklyn didn’t turn out the way I expected this morning. I went back to Brooklyn looking for the life I had left when I went to college. My father, the Judge Albert Cohn of the New York State Supreme Court always wanted me to go away and find a life outside of Brooklyn. It meant a lot to him to have his only child to go out of Brooklyn and continue what he called his judge’s legacy. However, I always miss what I had left. Life for me has been a struggle since I became an aide for Senator Joseph McCarthy. I’m an American patriot and my job those days was to prove to the country that the State Department was full of communist infiltrators, but the Senator and I had become what the Communists and Liberals call "discredited." The Senator influence in the country’s politics had decline but my influence is still strong. I didn’t fade away as he did. I always wanted to walk the streets that I walked when I was a child one more time to reassure myself that the struggle had been worth it. I yearn when I’m alone to feel again the joy I felt when I walked by the big houses of Rugby Road on my way home after school. Walking those streets one more time, I wanted to feel Brooklyn the way it felt to me then. Like a magical kingdom. Like the Jews in the promise land after wandering in the desert for forty years. Time seems to stretch endlessly on those days; ten minutes felt more as an hour and summer felt like the whole year. Nevertheless, this time, it hadn’t worked out that way to me. The magic feeling that felt as a boy looking at those houses from the sidewalk was no longer there. It seems that my clock had stared working right again. A minute was a minute and an hour was sixty minutes as it was everywhere else. Tick, tick, tick... tick. I couldn’t stretch time again or at least not today. After my conversation with the old man, I didn’t feel I could continue walking those streets anymore. He had taken away in minutes the feeling of anticipation I had in the subway while it went over the Manhattan Bridge on its way to Brooklyn.

‘Away’ by Michael Gow

Michael Gow’s play Away is the story of three different Australian families who go on holiday for Christmas in the sixties. By going away each family is hoping to resolve their issues. Although Away is set some time ago the themes and issues explored in the play are still relevant to a modern day audience, even one of a non-Australian background. Shakespearean plays that were written many hundreds of years ago and are still understandable and relevant to people all over the world today. Away is the story of three Australian families who go on holiday during the Christmas of 1968. Roy and Coral (the headmaster and his wife) are becoming increasingly close to breaking up. Their son was killed in the Vietnam War and Coral is still grieving for him. Tom and Meg were in the school’s production of A Midsummer’s Nights Dream. Tom has Leukaemia, and his parents, Harry and Vic, haven’t told him that he is going to die, but Tom has worked it out already. Tom and his family immigrated to Australia form England. They are going on holiday knowing that it could be their last together as a family, and are determined to have a good time. Meg is the same age as Tom and they both like each other. Meg’s parents, Gwen and Jim are going on holiday so Gwen can have a break. Gwen is a rather uptight and stressed person and thinks that to have anything good happen you have to make sacrifices. During each of the three families holidays there is a storm and they coincidently end up on the same beach. Away by Michael Gow is set in suburban Australia in the summer of 1968. However the specific time and place do not make it any less relevant to me. I could still relate to and understand what was happening in the play, even though it is set in a time before I was born. This is very much like Shakespearean plays that were written hundreds of years ago, even today people can still connect with the characters in them. It is interesting to note that Gow begins Away with a Shakespearean play, A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, and then choses to end it with another of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear. Away, like Shakespearean plays is non-naturalism, a feature of this being the non-changing set. Throughout the production of Away that I saw the set remains the same except for basic props such as suitcases and a table. White sand covered the floor and lights were shone on the sails to show the hanges between scenes for the play. In the play Tom is compared to Chip Rafferty, a well-known Australian actor who died at age 62 in 1971. Younger people of today probably haven’t heard of him, but from watching the play and reading the script can safely assume that he was a famous actor. What makes Away relevant to an audience of today or from a non-Au stralian background are the universal themes present in the play. As long as the audience can connect and empathise with a character or understand a theme in the play then it will be relevant to them. Some of the themes in the play include death/grief/loss, racism, class systems, and relationships. The relationship between Gwen and Meg (mother and daughter) is quite strained during the play. Gwen is portrayed as a very uptight and stressed person, while Meg is in her late teens and has her own ideas about things. During Act Three Gwen and Meg begin arguing over Jim’s missing Christmas presents for everyone. The argument ends with Gwen saying how hard she tries to make things good for Meg, and Meg apologises. I feel that I can connect to Meg, especially in the scene where she is arguing with her mother. After that argument her father, (Jim) asks her why she did it, because he’d asked her not to upset her mother and she did. Meg replies that she couldn’t help herself. I know how she feels. You don’t mean to hurt the person or upset them but you just have to have your say, no matter what the consequences of that may be. I also feel that I can relate to Gwen, Meg’s mother as she reminds me of my own mum. The near constant stressing about everything, and wanting the very best for her daughter is very familiar. The issue of death is also covered in Away. Roy and Coral lost a son in the Vietnam was and Coral is still grieving for him. While Harry and Vic know that there son Tom is going to die from leukaemia. People all over the world, no matter what language they speak, what culture they come from, or which country they live in can understand and empathise with what these families may be feeling. The sense of loss and grief that comes with death is a universal feeling that can make the play relevant to so many people.

Essay Feminism is Still Pertinent Today - 1387 Words

Man hating and unhygienic are the words typically used to describe a modern-day feminist, but the words that should be used are passionate and righteous. Incomprehension of the meaning of feminism leads to a lack of necessary female empowerment. Feminism, by definition, is the belief in social, political, and economic equality of the sexes (Issitt). When women participate in feminism, instead of working against it, they can tackle the everyday issues that try to silence women in society. Women were finally given the right to vote in 1919 and have gained more prominence in society today. Though, they still face many issues and many walls that have to be broken down before they can be given the equal life opportunities that men are granted†¦show more content†¦To try and make up for the inequality, they have to work more hours. This leaves less time to handle these daily tasks and to be able to spend time with their family. The year is 2014 and our country’s economy is still being held back by misogyny, and the overall belief that women are below men. Even in the words of the President of the United States, â€Å"when women succeed, America succeeds† (Shiu). The right to control one’s own body is a right that is guaranteed in the United States Constitution. Although, this right has been debated for women through the debate on abortion: whether it is a woman’s choice to be able to get rid of her unborn child or it is a choice that belongs to the state or federal government. â€Å"Nearly 1 in 3 American women will have an abortion by the age of 45† and without the opportunity to have one, this could cause greater issues with the amount of infants going up for adoption (Pickert 44). Predictably, most of the debate comes from a religious viewpoint that says the abortion should only be available in the case of a â€Å"legitimate rape† (Pickert 42). 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