The Epidemic of Childhood Obesity in the United States

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1. MLA Citation of Article
Li, Nan, Donna Storbino, Ahmed Saifuddin, and Cynthia S. Minkovitz. "Is There a Healthy Foreign Born Effect for Childhood Obesity in the United States?."Matern Child Health. 15. (2011): 310-323. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
2. Purpose/Main Idea of Article.
The purpose of the article is to explore factors associated with early childhood obesity, particularly focusing on whether having a foreign born mother can protect a child from weight-related problems.
3. Information (three important facts) the author uses to support the purpose:
A. The child obesity epidemic remains a major public concern in the United States and other countries.
B. According to the data provided by the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys (NHANES), 24.4% of children aged 2-5 years were at or above the 86 percentile on the Body Mass Index (BMI) -forage growth charts.
C. Immigrants have a lower BMI, longer life expectancy, lower risk of smoking, chronic conditions, and hypertension. According to the concept of “healthy immigrant effect”, people immigrating to the USA are considered to be healthier and have better perinatal health.
4. Inferences/Conclusion: What inferences and conclusion did the author make, if any? How did the author reach a conclusion? Logically?
The conclusions and introductory information constitute a logical frame of the article. The authors conclude that there is no evidence that children of immigrants are less prone to obesity. However, the data analyzed allowed to distinguish major predictors of early childhood obesity and overweight – from pre-pregnancy maternal weight, birth weight, to weight gain during infancy. The study is consistent with the already known facts about obesity predeterminers,...

... middle of paper ...

...at immigrants are likely to have better health because of the different eating behavioral patterns and better social support. However, it can fail to protect immigrants from adopting local lifestyle. What is more, due to the lower family income, typical for immigrants, the intake of the fattening unhealthy food can be increased. What is more, American urban neighborhood often lacks sources of healthy food and places where it can be purchase. Instead, an array of fast food outlets and convenience stores is available, providing unhealthy alternatives. It can shape and affect parental feeding behavior and result in children's obesity. Taking into account the data analyzed during the study, it was suggested that maternal pre-pregnancy weight, weight gained during pregnancy, as well as weight gain of infants were the major predictors of childhood overweight and obesity.

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