Viewpoint against childhood obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Viewpoint against childhood obesity - Essay Example This is a worrying trend because childhood obesity has undesirable personal and social implications hence the need to avert the condition in America. An obese child would be exposed to psychosocial problems. As noted by Green, Hargrove and Riley, such children would always be ridiculed and tormented by their peers. The problem has been noted to be even worse among girls known to be keen on their body images. This could even cause depression among such children. Such children become constant targets for social discrimination, which, coupled with their low self esteem, could hamper normal social functioning and academic success. Moreover, and even more important to note is the fact that obesity is associated with a myriad of medical complications. Childhood obesity has been associated respiratory ailments, hypertension, high cholesterol, orthopedic problems and depression. As noted by Barbour, about 70% of obese children have a risk factor of contracting a cardiovascular disease while 39% have more than one of such factors. Green, Hargrove and Riley indicate that type 2 diabetes has been on the increase among African American children as a result of obesity. Other health risks associated with childhood obesity include sleep apnea, hepatic steatosis and asthma. As such, this impacts on the government spending on healthcare. As noted by Green, Hargrove and Riley, the estimates for healthcare associated to childhood obesity was about $71 billion between 2008 and 2009. This informed a national healthcare organization known as Healthy People 2010 to seek to reduce the number of obese children aged 6 to 19 to 16% by the year 2020. To develop appropriate preventive measures, it would be critical to understand the causes of obesity. Basically, obesity results from an imbalance between the consumed calories and the calories used for growth and development, physical activity and metabolism according to Barbour. This could be caused by an