Childhood Obesity in Lancaster County

A significant part of the children and youth of Lancaster are confronting an increasing danger. This is an issue that has short-term and long-term health complications like diseases and even social-emotional problems. This increasing issue I am referring to is childhood obesity. For instance the Lancaster New Era newspaper states that “About 18 percent of youths in Pennsylvania are overweight and, according to preliminary data, the percentages are slightly higher than that in Lancaster County” (“Pa” D5). This issue is talked about in many articles trying to get the information out there. So then why does obesity keep increasing amongst our young? The problem lies in the families who are not doing enough to help fight this ever increasing disorder. The lack of parental involvement in the health of their kids has caused the number of overweight and obese children to increase in Lancaster.

Our families could do more to encourage their children to make changes in their lifestyle early on in their lives. You can see this in a child who is raised in a family that is not concerned about the eating habits that he is developing, by the time the he enters school it may already be too late. The child could enter depression as other kids make fun of him for not fitting in the “norm”. Then back at home the family may even encourage such eating behaviors to the child. Families spend lots of time being concerned about other health aspects of their kids, but fail to see that being obese can have very powerful emotional impacts on their children.

Now in my case I was raised in a Hispanic family, that like many other families of our ethnic group we tend to neglect obesity and even fall in the error of looking at it as something good. From my ex...

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...at an earlier age, hopefully we can prevent it” (qtd. in Holzman A1). All of this means that families not taking their children’s health into their own matters will have great consequences in the generations to come here at Lancaster.

Works Cited

“Pa. Schools to Help Battle Kids' Obesity.” Lancaster New Era [Lancaster, PA] 10 Dec. 2003: D5.

LexisNexis. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

“Schools Unfairly Cast As Obesity Villains.” Intelligencer Journal [Lancaster, PA] 7 May 2010:

A5. LexisNexis. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

Stathopulos, Sue. Personal interview. 10 Feb 2011.

Holzman, Paula. “PA Wants Schools to Battle Obesity.” Intelligencer Journal [Lancaster, PA]

10 Dec. 2003: A1. LexisNexis. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.

Lindt, Susan. “Weighty Issue; Two New Ingo Packets Address Childhood Obesity.”

Intelligencer Journal [Lancaster, PA] 21 Oct. 2004: B1. LexisNexis. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.