Buy an essay: The causes and rates of childhood obesity in the United States

Dangerous for health overweight often arises up in early childhood, as a result of cultural stereotypes of parents: a thick child is a healthy child. (Dalton, 2004) In the beginning of the paper I would like to present real facts presented by Smith, who said that “childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. The prevalence of obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1%.” (Smith, 1999) This information allow us to conclude that obesity is one of the most widespread chronic diseases in the world and we even could name it the “epidemic of the XXI century” due its fast spread and all-absorbing character. The main aim of this paper is to pay extra attention on childhood obesity in the United States and understand its main causes.
In the process of problem presenting it is necessary to define the main notion of this research paper and we will give the determination of the obesity in this paragraph. According to Pool, we know that obesity is a chronic heterogeneous, making progress disease, related to the row of genetic, behavioral, outside environmental, hormonal and neurological factors, resulting in violations of food consumption, violations of all types of metabolism and energy imbalance. (Pool, 2001) In other words, obesity is the result of caloric imbalance that greatly influenced on childhood organism in different ways. Thinking about reasons of obesity we understand that high prevalence of this disease is conditioned by urbanization, decline of physical activity and availability of high-calorie food. Our nation is faced with the fact that “the causes of childhood obesity are multi-factorial. Overweight in children and adolescents is generally caused by a lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating patterns resulting in excess energy intake, or a combination of the two. Genetics and social factors – socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, media and marketing, and the physical environment – also influence energy consumption and expenditure.” (Smith, 1999) Basing on observed facts it is possible to say that all factors of children obesity and overweight work together and influence on the growing problem of obesity in the whole country. Making a conclusion from above stated information about obesity, Anderson & Butcher explained that obesity brings development of numerous diseases, such as diabetes, high level of disability and decline of general life-span of patients.