Final Paper

0Imagine sitting around the dinner table with family and friends, surrounded by a deliciously aromatic home-cooked meal; the last thing the children have on their mind is how many calories the mashed potatoes have in them. Obviously kids should not have to sit around and count calories, however parents are the ones who need to intervene and take control of their child’s future. It is a myth that children can always eat whatever they want because they have such fast metabolisms. According to age- and sex- specific body mass index (BMI) standards, developed from national data collected from 1963 to 1994, the rates for childhood obesity have approximately tripled during the past 3 decades (Wilson 1). This might not be such a problem if parents put more thought into what they feed their children and the lack of exercise their kids are getting. Parents are not the only culprits; school cafeterias and hallways are filled with vending machines selling sugary drinks and greasy chips. Schools’ claim to care about children as a whole, but they are overlooking major factors as to what makes up a healthy child. There needs to be more health education earlier on in children’s’ schooling, and they should also be encouraged to have at least 30 minutes of activity at recess. Obesity can be stopped early on in parenting, and schools need to pay more attention to children’s’ bodies, not just their minds.
1Parents have to be educated about childhood obesity; the majority of guardians tend to not realize the seriousness of this issue. Doctors are coming out with more and more reports every day giving statistics showing the growing number of heart related diseases and diabetes that obesity causes, even in children’s earliest years. Doctors and experts can make a difference by shedding light on the subject when children go in for check-ups. Once the child’s parent or guardian knows how to prevent the start of obesity or stop it before it gets worse, the child will have a lesser chance of ending up overweight in their lifetime. Health education starts in the home. In a recent New York Times article, Marc Santora pointed out an alarming statistic about New York Children saying that, “by the age of 2, there is a one-in-four chance that the child will be obese.”(Santora 1) The best way to prevent obesity is to start feeding children healthy, nutritious food as soon as they are brought home from the hospital. As children grow older, parents should become healthy role models and eat nutritious food to let their children know how important it really is. It is best not to be too strict on the children, and if they are slipping, to make gradual changes in their daily activity and eating habits. The common misconception is that children work off their “baby fat”, but overweight children have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight adults (Edelman 1). Parents being positive role models and teaching their children about the importance of health at an early age would help stop the rise of obese children.
2Hopefully schools will start to emphasize that a healthy child is made up of mind and body. For years schools never seemed to watch what the students ate. A lot of elementary schools have a health class that the children eventually take, but it doesn’t
seem to reflect all of the children’s eating habits. Children spend half of their day in school; that means half a day’s worth of eating. If schools monitored children’s eating habits and provided more nutritious food, maybe children would catch on to the healthy trend. Schools could make an effort to limit the amount of vending machines filled with sugary drinks and greasy chips containing no nutritional value. This problem has caught national attention. The Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association are fighting against unhealthy food that is served in school, and trying to urge schools to provide more nutritious alternative to serve to students (Edelman 1). Clinton and the AHA are also encouraging parents to join in on the campaign to fight obesity, considering parents are usually more of an influence on a child than any government official or teacher would be. Another approach to making a change in children’s physical wellness is to increase the amount of time spent in gym class or recess. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, children should be getting at least 60 minutes of physical activity most days of the week (even more if the child is already overweight). Private schools tend to have more money to be able to provide their students with healthier foods, but the government should pay attention to the children coming from low-income families attending public schools. Children would also benefit from a more extensive health education program in their earlier schooling. Children in elementary school do not take their health as seriously as they should, and it would really make a difference in kid’s lives if schools took more of an initiative to change that.
3 When interviewing a public school teacher who works in a poor part of Chicago, the concern that is expressed about the future of young children is indescribable. Lisa Jason
is a teacher at Haugan public school in Chicago, and she has been witnessing how appalling young children’s’ eating habits are becoming. After working at Haugan, and teaching special education for over 15 years, she has observed everything about the students in her classes. Over the years she has noticed the growing number of overweight children roaming the halls of the school. This teacher has witnessed kids in her class eating flaming hot Cheetos at nine a.m. followed by a bottle of Mountain Dew to wash them down. Throughout the day she watches them poison their body with chemically altered food that has absolutely no nutritional value and empty calories that turn to fat. “These children are killing themselves, they don’t understand the seriousness of the situation,” Mrs. Jason told me. After years of pleading with the principal for more health education (and being turned down because of financial reasons), she decided to take matters into her own hands. Because she has a lot more leeway with her schedule than most teachers, she has now incorporated an extra 15 – 20 minutes of recess for the children everyday, and personally takes out the time during lunch to educate the children on what mistakes they are making in regards to their choice of food. Lisa feels like she is making a difference in these childrens’ lives, and hopes they pass on the message. She strongly believes that the public school system can come up with a way to educate children in elementary school about their health and the dangers of childhood obesity.
4It’s not an easy task to persuade children into eating healthier foods, when all their lives they were allowed to eat whatever they pleased. But it is a lot easier when they are brought up by parents who make healthy choices for them, before they are capable of doing so themselves. The root of the problem in regards to childhood obesity are the
parents. Parents and/or guardians are the foundation for the rest of a child’s life. A child generally makes decisions and life choices based on how he/she was grown up. Parents / guardians must be educated in the field of nutrition, so their children can learn from a healthy role model and can be taught proper eating habits. In a child’s early years of schooling they start to branch off and become influenced by other authority, including teachers. If a parent starts their child off right by eating a mixture of all the food groups and getting more exercise, followed by health education and daily recess, there would be a significant drop in the number of overweight children.
5Obesity among children is more rampant than ever before. This issue deserves just as much attention as do other important issues that Americans deal with. The life expectancy of humans is supposed to increase not decrease as time goes on. If we continue to ignore the problem, and feed Americas children unhealthy foods the problem will worsen, one day becoming an epidemic. It is well on its way to becoming out of control if it is not taken seriously now by parents and schools. These two combined can greatly affect preventing childhood obesity. They are the main two components in the fight against childhood obesity. It is time to stop ignoring what your child eats because you think he/she is young and able to eat whatever they want. The statistics show that is no longer true with the foods that we have today. This problem needs to be known by all parents and schools so that American children no longer are consistently overweight.