The War on obesity

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Recommended: Childhood obesity : cause and solution

With the rapid growth and wealth of information available over the internet, the number of individuals who fail to recognize the importance of maintaining a healthy weight is alarming. Another, concerning fact is the seemingly constant disregard of this data even when it comes to children. Some parents seem to ignore the warnings presented by doctors and other qualified persons rather than realize that their overweight child has a health problem that may cause serious diseases, even for a body so young. Obesity continues to be a growing problem in America despite ample campaigning. Most individuals would agree that children are generally unable to care for themselves; instead they are dependent upon their caregivers, whom are responsible to help them learn right from wrong. This would entail teaching proper health habits, including a healthy diet. One of the things that caregivers can do is heighten their awareness of the weight problems currently plaguing America preferably before their children are diagnosed as overweight or obese. It is also important to use preventative measures that would reduce the chances of children becoming overweight and/or implement steps that would put the child in a healthier weight range. Finally, caregivers should remain patient and understanding with children in order to avoid causing other health risks.
The CDC states that, “[o]verweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height… Obesity is defined as having excess body fat.” (1) Their data shows that “[i]n 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.” According to the information they provide, this translates to a more than quadruple increase since 1980. These statistics prove that this pro...

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... seems to fit this situation. Always be patient and understanding with your child and remember that there is no quick fix for losing weight.
In the end, no one can make those individuals who pay no attention to the research understand its importance. Perhaps in time this country will realize where they are headed and finally remedy this growing weight epidemic. The information is out there and readily at our fingertips. We need only to type it in a search engine for thousands upon thousands of sources to be generated, a number of them medical, and the harsh reality will play out on our computer screens. It could just be that society is not ready to fight the war on obesity just yet, and I will admit that we are just beginning to see the effects of obesity on this population, but regardless the fact remains that doing nothing could lead to consequences nobody wants.

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