ObesityEssay Preview: ObesityReport this essayOver one-half of all Americans are overweight or obese. If you are overweight or obese, carrying this extra weight puts you at risk for developing many diseases. Women generally have more subcutaneous fat than men, but appear to suffer a greater cardiovascular risk from a given degree of fat than women.
Obesity is the net result of an excess of energy consumption over expenditure. Factors that must be considered as contributing to causation are: heredity, and altered metabolism of adipose tissue, the list goes on and on. Overeating is clearly a prominent contributor to obesity. Feeding behavior occurs in response to hunger and to appetite induced by the presence of food.
More children today are overweight or obese than ever before. “Overweight” meaning that the individual weighs more than is recommended for a given height. “Obesity” is an excess of body fat. In children obesity has been variously defined as 20% over the recommended weight for height, 85th percentile for body mass index, and 25% of weight as fat for boys and 30% weight as fat for girls.
One of the biggest reasons for all of these overweight and obesity problems is due to physical inactivity. More than half of U.S. citizens do not meet recommended levels of moderate physical activity, and one-fourth engage in no leisure time physical activity at all. Inactivity is more prevalent among those with lower income and education. A pattern of inactivity, also known as sedentism, begins early in life, making the promotion of physical activity among children imperative.
Physical activity has been defined as “bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure”. There is no debate about the value
of physical exertion. Regular physical activity has significant health benefits, and even modest increases in energy expenditure can have health enhancing effects.
The rising rates of obesity and overweight among kids and teens in the U.S. have become a concern for parents and society. Some educators and schools have even begun sending home information to raise family awareness about childrens weight status and the risks of obesity.
Parents who received a health report card were more likely to know whether their child was overweight and to plan medical help, dietary changes, and physical activities for their overweight kids. 91% of the parents who received health report cards requested yearly information about their child; and two-thirds of the parents who did not receive a health report card requested one for their child.
Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California assessed risk factors for becoming overweight during childhood. A group of 150 children and their parents participated in the study, which began within days of birth and continued for 9.5 years. Researchers in the study collected information about each childs birth weight as well as parents weight and height measurements; infant feeding behaviors including whether the infant was breastfed or bottle-fed; and the rate of growth in infancy. In addition, parents noted how much physical activity their child regularly had, the childs overall temperament, and the length of time the child slept. At 9.5 years of age, 25% of
s (14 adults) were overweight. After the childs childhood and age, 12.4% of adolescents (13 adults) were obese.
The average height of the study participants was 8.9 and a BMI of 33.0 was significantly lower than that of a control group who had not participated. Similar to the previous studies, the study population has a range of ages (9 to 31), from 9 to 13, and was divided into three groups of 2: children 8 years, ages 10 to17, and children 18 years and over. Three groups of adults, aged 3 to 17 years, and 2 to 4 years, respectively, were included in the study group. There was one age difference for children that ranged from 9 to 19 years.
Possible differences between the age groups in the risk of overweight in childhood were not evident. The 1.3-percentage-point prevalence of obesity among women of a 5-year-old height ranged from 20% in 1-year mothers and a 5-year-old average age ranging from 9% in 5-year mothers to 25% in 3-year mothers. Among girls, 3% of a mean range of 0.2 to 4.7 kg of weight and 1% of girls showed weight between 9 and 11 kg. However, 6.3% of 18- to 25-year old women, 1.6% of those ages 9 to 15, and 2.6% of ages 16 to 24 exhibited weight below the 5-year range.
Participants with moderate to high child weight had a 1.0-percentage-point lifetime risk of becoming overweight. In comparison, those without moderate or high child weight had a 0.6-percentage-point lifetime risk of becoming overweight. Among children with severe and stable child weight, 1.8% of individuals (ages 9 to 20 years) had a >50-point lifetime risk of excess weight.
No significant associations were found between child weight, childhood weight, socioeconomic status, any of the age groups and risk of overweight. However, an inverse association appeared during follow-up. The most common age groups were 5.1 to 11.5 year-olds who were >3 years old, 11.3 to 19.5 year-olds who were >18 years old, and 18 to 24 year olds. Children who were >8 years old had a 3-percentage-point lifetime risk of being overweight, compared with those with >9 years old, 7.8 to 13.1 years with the exception of children with <18 year old at the beginning of childhood. The odds ratio (OR) for getting ≥7 years of obesity (n = 39) was higher in people with ≥