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Parents responsibility childrens diet
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In the article “The Battle Against Fast Food Begins in the Home,” Daniel Weintraub argues that it is the parents, not anybody else, who are responsible for teaching kids healthy eating and exercise habits. He also states that, “It’s the fault of the parents who let their kids eat unhealthy foods and sit in front of the television or computer for hours at a time.” His argument that parents are to blame for childhood obesity is correct to a certain extent but he fails to realize that fast food company’s marketing and advertising to young children also plays a big part in the problem. Parents are naturally responsible for their kids eating habits. They have a huge impact on whether their kids want to eat healthy or unhealthy, or whether they want to watch TV or get up and go exercise. Obesity may not seem to be such a big deal as a young child, but it will become a problem as a young adult. Personally, I think parents are to blame because they have a choice. They can either cook a nice healthy meal for their children or they can just go out and buy something from a fast food restaurant...
We must do something about fast food products, to stop from affecting children and leading them to obesity. Is what reflect David Barboza’s article “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat.” School’s, Parent’s, Policy Makers, etc… Should take the lead in this action, by reducing many unhealthy food products from school’s, store’s, and place’s close to home.
George Parker once said, “The only people who care about advertising are the people who work in advertising." Advertisers use many different techniques that target children and teens. Many people do not realize how harmful this can turn out to be. Advertising plays a harmful role in the lives of youth because it poses health risks, prevents children and teens from saving money, and exposes them to way too many ads.
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.
In the documentary Killer at Large, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona remarked that “Obesity is a terror within. It’s destroying our society from within and unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9/11 or any other terrorist event that you can point out…” Carmona is indeed right, with the rapid increase of obese children, America is on the fast track to producing a generation with a life expectancy shorter than their peers. One of the main factor is the media representation of obesity (Greenstreet 2008). In today’s society parents are not only worrying about televisions influence on their kid’s behavior but their weight and health, too. According to study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, that researched the role of media in childhood obesity, stated the obesity increased by 2% for every hours of television in adolescent’s ages 12 to 17. The advertisement of food and beverages present a very strong influence on the children. Most of the products being advert...
Obese Parents to Blame for Obese Children? (2011, November 4). Issues and Controversies. Retrieved February 16, 2014, from http://www.2facts.com.holyfamily.idm.oclc.org/icof_story.aspx?PIN=ib160612&term=child+obesity
Obesity in the United States, which the media has labeled a national crisis, has also been connected to poverty rates. Big fast food industry’s target poor communities, and spend millions of dollars each year to create advertising that appeals to these specific areas. These industry’s also target naïve children when advertising because they know that eating habits developed in childhood are usually carried into adulthood. Children who are exposed to television advertisements for unhealthy food and who are not educated well enough on good nutrition will grow up and feed their families the same unhealthy foods they ate as kids. A big way fast food giants are able to make certain young people have access to unhealthy food is by strategically placing franchises in close proximity to schools. They will often place three times as many outlets within walking distance of schools than in areas where there are no schools nearby. The way fast food advertising is targeted towards children is very alarming considering how important good nutrition is for young people and how a child’s eating habits can affect their growth and
Crouse, Janice Shaw. "The Fast-Food Industry Intentionally Markets Unhealthy Food to Children." Fast Food. Ed. Tracy Brown Collins. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2009. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
Obesity has become an epidemic in today’s society. Today around 50% of America is now considered to be over weight. Fast-food consumption has been a major contributor to the debate of the twenty-first century. Chapter thirteen, titled “Is Fast-Food the New Tobacco,” in the They Say I Say book, consists of authors discussing the debate of fast-food’s link to obesity. Authors debate the government’s effects on the fast-food industry, along with whether or not the fast-food industry is to blame for the rise in obesity throughout America. While some people blame the fast food industry for the rise in obesity, others believe it is a matter of personal responsibility to watch what someone eats and make sure they get the proper exercise.
A lot of children are overweight and obese too, unfortunately. Childhood obesity is especially sad because, for the most part, the parents are at fault. The child, especially when they’re young, have no control over what they eat and couldn’t try to be healthy, even if they wanted to. “In 2013, 42 million children under the age of 5 were overweight of obese.” (Obesity and
Let us say a parent is doing everything possible to ensure his or her child is living a healthy lifestyle, but still the child faces problems with obesity. Why should the parent be held accountable? Especially if there are genetic factors involved in the cause of the child’s obesity. The article in Oxford Journals also states, “Heritability estimates for obesity are high…” (Genetics…). Some children cannot control the fact that they are obese. Even if the child is involved in physical activity and eats healthy, the child cannot control his or her genetic makeup. In this case, the child becoming obese was already determined before he or she was born. Obesity is associated with several health risks such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pulmonary diseases, and certain forms of cancer (Genetics…). Most parents would choose to have a genetically healthy child than a child that has to suffer with the negative effects obesity will cause throughout the child’s life. What parent would voluntarily want to see his or her child
Parents have always known about obesity and what the affects obesity has on people. Although parents have known about this preventable disease, they are just now becoming more aware about what is happening to their own children. Now they want to start pointing fingers as to why these young children are becoming obese; nobody wants to take the blame for putting these young lives at risk. “Greenbalt states in his article that obesity is becoming an epidemic that there is about 300,000 children each year that die because they are overweight....
According to “Burger Battles” from the Weekly Reader, obesity is defined as a person whose weight is 20 percent higher than recommended for their height (Burger Battles 1). When this condition begins to affect children lives, it is then known as childhood obesity. Within the United States of America, around 15 percent of children are considered to be obese (Holguin 3). Increasing tremendously, this outbreak has actually tripled in the amount of obese teen and doubled in children up to the age of thirteen (Burger Battles 2). One of the factors that is usually overlooked in the cause for obesity is the role of television. Not only does it reduce the amount of physical activity, the advertisements and commercials are targeting innocent viewers. In a survey completed by Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, the average child watches nearly 19 hours and 40 minutes of television a week (Ruskin 2). With that amount of time spent watching television, advertisements for fast food will be entering the children’s minds.
In America, parents are always on the run they don’t have time to make their children a homemade meal and when that happens parent get something fast and unhealthy usually at a fast food restaurant. Most Americans that eat at a fast food chain usually don’t make the healthiness decision mostly because they don’t know what is in their food and how many calories are in the food they consume. In the article “Don’t blame the eater” by David Zinczenkon, Zinczenkon talked about how “fast food restaurant don’t have the calories information charts on their food and compare’s it to it to advertisements ads not having labels on the way tobacco ads do”(Zinczenko). Then there is Radley Balko that wrote “What you eat is your business”, Balko is putting
Fast food is one of the most controversial topics; most people tend to blame fast food industries because of their obesity or a disease they got, and never hold responsibility for their own action.
Research shows “the prevalence of obesity among U.S. preschoolers has doubled in recent decades” (May 629). This is not surprising because we live in a “fast food” world where convenience is king. Where the television is the babysitter, and staying indoors to play video games is preferred to playing outside. So is this the child’s fault? Sometimes, but it is my opinion that parents are mainly to blame for childhood obesity because they are the ones that buy the groceries, set the television limits, and rely on fast food to feed their children.