Childhood Obesity In The 21st Century

CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious problems in the 21st century. A lot of scientists are studying this problem, as obesity among the children has grown tremendously in the last thirty years. Why is it starting to be a problem? Why are health departments all over the world sounding the alarm? Why is this problem becoming to be global and affecting many low-and middle-income countries, especially urban areas? Recently, forty-two million overweight children were counted all over the world. Nearly thirty-one million of these children are living in developing countries. Should we be concerned about this problem? Definitely, yes, as this problem can cause a world epidemic that can affect and hurt many people’s lives.

There is a variety of reasons why children become overweight and obese. Genetic factors, lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating, and not enough care from parents are the most common causes of this problem. From sociological researches, obesity in children mostly occurs in low-income families or parents with little to no education. Only in some instances, being overweight can be caused by hormonal problems or some other health issue.. Also, children who have an overweight family are in increased risk of being obese, as they share the same family behaviors, including eating and activity

It was surprisingly challenging to track this problem all over the world as some countries do not field surveys that measured height and weight of school- aged children. The world Health Organization, and the International Obesity Task Force -further complicate matters, making it hard to compare data between regions. But anyway, a lot of researches were done by 2014 and from these data we can see how obesity rate since 1970 has tremendously grown, and become an alarm for public