Nowadays, children's life span may be shorter than their parents' due to obesity. Statistics are showing that there is rapid increasing rate of obesity in childhood in the world especially in United States of America. America's children are getting fat-so fat they may grow up to be the unhealthiest generation in decades. In reference to a study from National Health and Nutrition Examination studies, the prevalence of childhood obesity has increased from 5.0% in 1980 to 12.4% in 2006. In the same way, new discoveries have proved multiple fatal complications of this chronic disease during these children's adulthood. Some of the obese children are not lucky enough to grow up old. In a BBC new interview, Dr Sheila McKenzie stated that, two years ago, a three years old child died from heart failure which was the consequence of extreme obesity. She also revealed that those obese children were candidate to respiration problems as sleep apnea because they were chocked by their own body fat. This paper will discuss the causes, complication and treatment/prevention of obesity in childhood. This paper will first state the parameters used to identify obesity. It will give a few statistics showing the prevalence of obesity.
Obesity can be defined as an illness due to excessive accumulation of adipose tissue in human system, which leads to decreasing of one's well-being. The quantity of adipose tissue cannot be precisely estimated. Therefore healthcare providers use physical parameters such as body heaviness or height to calculate approximately the body mass index. When the BMI is equal or greater than twenty-five, the person is considered overweight. In addition, if the person's BMI is at least thirty, he is obese. This definition can be reasonably applied to adults, but at an early age, it's difficult to use BMI because of the continuous change over time and between the genders. The BMI of children being studied are compared to a proportionate group of children considered normal. Therefore, children's BMI is calculated using a percentile.
Most of the time, a child with a BMI equal or greater than eighty-fifth percentile is consider obese and a child with a BMI equal or greater than eighty-fifth percentile is overweight.
The rising number of obese children is placing a heavy demand on pediatricians. An obese child is most likely to be obese in adulthood resulting in illness even death. Avoiding or reversing childhood obesity increases the expectations for adult health. Childhood obesity results in multiple harmful outcomes such as endocrine disease, high blood pressure, and low self-esteem. This chronic illness in childhood has affected large groups of children all over the planet. In reference to the National Health and Nutrition Examination studies, the rate of overweight children was two times lower for children older than two years and younger than eleven years, and three times lower for adolescents a couple of decades ago. In the same way, the rate of overweight children is increased in black non-Hispanics, Hispanics, and Indians American populations. The same study showed that a child of overweight parents has an increased change of being obese. This is true for a newborn of at least four kilograms of weight parent and child obesity. The results of the studies prove that most of the overweight children have both or one parent overweight.
Nevertheless, some obese children have parents within the normal range of weight. On one hand, some authors established that the genetic material is the cause of obesity in childhood and on the other hand, some authors denied the transmission of obesity from parents to child.
It was recently discovered in the twentieth century that the cause of obesity has a genetic component. This discovery was made from two offspring who were found to have the same genetic problem. From that study, more than two hundred and fifty materials were located in human body by scientists in favor of obesity in childhood. In opposition most of the genetic material discovered keeps from losing body weight instead of increasing it.
A woman who consumes many calories during her pregnancy period ends up putting her child in high risk for obesity. They explain that during pregnancy, obese woman transfers more nutrients to their babies through the placenta. This brings irreversible changes in the baby's way of eating, utilizing, and storing nutrients in their body. These studies established a correlation between an obese, or overweight pregnant woman and the weight of their child at the birth and a possible excessive weight of the child when he or she will grow older. Thus, this study demonstrates that the cause of obesity can be transferred from parents to child. Nevertheless, another author established a relationship between inactivity and obesity. For instance, when a child is watching television, he or she is not only at increased risk of lack of physical activity but also he is exposed to overeating. This food consumed by the child is degraded into energy. The energy is not used due to sedentary, but it is transformed into fat, which can lead to obesity. On one hand, advertisements on television mostly encouraged bad eating habits by demonstrating the great taste of fast foods, drinks highly rich in carbohydrates and vitamins, and snacks loaded with fat and salts. On the other hand, it is rare to view advertisements about fruits and vegetables, which are also less exciting for children.
The cause of obesity is a lot more complicated than it is presented to us and some methodic evaluations were not able to show that obesity is the result of less body movement.
Having an excessive weight during earlier age is related to multiple medical and psychological complications. These medical complications are summarized as metabolic syndrome listed as follows: insulin resistance, type2 diabetes mellitus, polycentric ovary syndrome, elevated fat in the body, and high blood pressure disease. This association of diseases was recognized in the childhood, and is related to an augmented risk of heart and vessels disease when these children grow older. Concerning ineffectiveness of insulin, having an excessive weight is a frequent reason of this type of complication and the highest predictor of this disease in middle age. In a recent study, almost half of children tested who had elevated excessive weight prove a relationship between the gravity of having an excessive weight and the occurrence of metabolic troubles. There is also a stable relationship between an occurrence of type2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. The number of type 2 diabetes was elevated in the latest years, coupling with a sky rocketing rates of obesity. The principal meaning of this can be sugar intolerance by one's body. A new research show that almost half of one hundred sixty seven obese children tested was discovered having sugar intolerance in their body and some of them were already diabetics.
Obese children according to the same study have two to four times the chance than non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, joint pain, and impossibility to move and fractures. An obese child can be also depressed or having malfunctioning conduct. These children have more low-self esteem than their peers. For example, a research showed that thirty four percent of excessive weight young female had low self-esteem, in contrast with only eight pecent of normal weight children of the same gender. Lasting psychological problems are depression and less confidence when will grow older. A new research of twenty years had demonstrated a relationship between youth's obesity and unusual depression and aggression in adulthood (Acosta). Sometimes lung dysfunction related to obesity may be frequent respiratory arrest during the night when they are asleep, associated to inability to perform physical activity during the day thus leading to increased body heaviness (Ebbeling et al.).
The treatment of children's overweight was concerned about change in eating habit, an augmentation of exercise's time and amelioration of children's conduct. Families were directed to eat all foods without consuming too many calories. Therefore, family has reduced their calories intake to less than fifteen hundred calories in twenty four hours in order to diminish their body activities and exercise no more than an hour and half in twenty four hours and twenty times per month. Families were advised to give their kids some gift to stimulate good conduct and self control (Wilfley et al.)
For example in Colorado, Owensboro system was associated with other agencies to battle childhood obesity and to implement children's well-being. Many workout plans were set for children and to support each child's advancement. Specific people were designed to help instructors the way to integrate exercise and healthy eating habit to their teaching. In addition, some meetings were held in the schools in order to educate dietary personnel (Runny).
The term overweight has different meanings to health care providers compared to women who have obese children. Health care providers use children's height and weight to determine that seven children out of eighteen were obese in that experience. These women had no clue about how to use specific physical parameters to evaluate their child's weight. They considered their obese children to be just strong and healthy. Therefore, they were not able to refuse food to their children or set an activity routine for them. Health care providers should go beyond their regular charting of data to explain to these mothers, the meaning of obesity and how to manage this chronic health condition (Jain et al.).
Although, exercise and a change of life style can gradually decrease human body fat, the number of obese children is still sky rocked in united of America. What are the causes, complications and prevention of childhood obesity? The causes of this disease are interrelated so, a single generic factor may not be sufficient to make a child obese but inactivity associated with overeating more than body requires by these children and are the potential causes. The complications are both short and long term, and usually include numeric life threatening diseases among children and later in adulthood. The treatment of obesity is problematic and also very expensive in general so, its prevention through parent's education is the key to build healthy children and new obesity and disease free generation affordable for communicate.
