Childhood Obesity

Obesity in children and adolescents is a serious issue with many health and social consequences that often continue into adulthood. Recent national studies show that 16% of high school students are overweight and nearly 10% were obese. The survey, called the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System (YRBSS), is conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and uses a nationally representative sample of students in grades 9 to 12.

Some parents underestimate the health risks associated with excess weight as it applies to their children as well as the importance of achieving and maintaining behavioral changes that are associated with obesity prevention.

In terms of their own behavior, 61% of parents said that it would not be very difficult to change their eating and/or physical activity patterns if it would help prevent obesity in any of their children. But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 51% of children and adolescents eat less than one serving a day of fruit, and 29% eat less than one serving a day of vegetables that are not fried.

Among six choices of what they believed to be the greatest risk to their children's long-term health and quality of life, only 5.6% of parents chose "being overweight or obese." More parents selected other choices as the greatest risk: alcohol, sexually transmitted disease, smoking, violence, and illegal drugs.

Causes of Childhood Obesity

As with adult-onset obesity, childhood obesity has multiple causes centering around an imbalance between calories obtained from food and calories expended in physical activity. Childhood obesity most likely results from a combination of nutritional, psychological, familial, and physiological factors.

The Family
The risk of becoming obese is greatest among children who have two obese parents. This may be due to powerful genetic factors or to parental modeling of both eating and exercise behaviors, indirectly affecting the child's energy balance.

Low-energy Expenditure
The average American child spends several hours each day watching television; time which in previous years might have been devoted to physical pursuits. Obesity is greater among children and adolescents who frequently watch television, not only because little energy is expended while viewing but also because of concurrent consumption of high-calorie snacks.

Heredity
Heredity has recently been shown to influence fatness, regional fat distribution, and response to overfeeding. In addition, infants born to overweight mothers have been found to be less active and to gain more weight by age three months when compared with infants of normal weight mothers, suggesting a possible inborn drive to conserve energy.

Prevention of Childhood Obesity

Teaching healthy behaviors at a young age is important since change becomes more difficult with age. Behaviors involving physical activity and nutrition are the cornerstone of preventing obesity in children and adolescents. Families and schools are the two most critical links in providing the foundation for those behaviors.

Creating an Active Environment:

• Make time for regular physical activities
• Plan special active family-outings
• Start an active neighborhood program
• Assign active chores to every family member
• Enroll your child in a structured activity that he or she enjoys
• Instill an interest in your child to try a new sport
• Limit the amount of TV watching

Creating a Healthy Eating Environment:

• Implement the same healthy diet for your entire family
• Plan times when you prepare foods together
• Eat meals together at the dinner table at regular times
• Avoid rushing to finish meals
• Avoid other activities during mealtimes such as watching TV
• Avoid foods that are high in calories, fat or sugar
• Have snack foods available that are low-calorie and nutritious
• Avoid serving portions that are too large
• Avoid forcing your child to eat if he/she is not hungry
• Limit the frequency of fast-food eating to no more than once per week
• Avoid using food as a reward or the lack of food as punishment