Childhood Obesity And The Factors That Lead To A Child Being Obese

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As obesity rates continue to rise in in the United States it is not surprising that we are seeing a rising number of obese children. But just what is it that results in child obesity?

As is so often the case there is no one cause of childhood obesity and there are many different things which cause obesity in children.

For example, it is often the case that a child with overweight or obese parents will be overweight or obese and this suggests that there may well be a genetic or inherited element to obesity. However, though this is an area which is presently being studied, no genetic link has been established yet and it is thought far more likely that it is the diet and eating habits of the family that lead to obesity and not genetics.

In the past few years there has been a marked change in eating habits with fast food restaurants appearing on every street corner, junk food available everywhere and our supermarket shelves lined with so-called 'convenience' foods which are often extremely high in sugar. The days when we sat down to home cooked meals are long gone in the majority of households and have been replaced by microwave meals or take-away food. Indeed, a growing number of parents are now choosing to take their children out for a hamburger instead of cooking a meal at home not just because it is simpler than cooking but also because it saves on the washing up!

Additionally, we have witnessed a dramatic drop in activity levels for many groups of children, helped in no small measure by the introduction of video games, home computers and now the ever present mobile phone. Not surprisingly, as activity levels have dropped so children have lost their normal ability to burn off the calories gained from eating a growing quantity of junk food.

Television, the Internet, magazines and other forms of media also play an important role as they all but dominate our childrens' lives and junk food, fast food and confectionary manufacturers are not slow in jumping onto this particular bandwagon and make full use of the advertising opportunity provided by the media. A lot of people argue that advertising has done more to encourage the increase in childhood obesity that almost anything else in the past few years.

There are also clearly many social factors at play in our modern world and a lot of children today will simply eat as a result of boredom. In addition, they will turn to food when they are angry, stressed, depressed or anxious.

Today a lot of medical research is being aimed at the cause of childhood obesity and its treatment and the majority of this is focused on finding a solution to the problem using a combination of diet and exercise once confronted with an obese child. However, with childhood obesity continuing to increase at such a disturbing rate, perhaps it is now time to tackle the roots of the problem and to stop our children from suffering from obesity in the first place.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

GastricBypassFacts.info provides a wealth of information on obesity and is an excellent place to find the latest article on obesity including an article about medical studies on child obesity

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