Childhood obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Childhood obesity - Essay Example Obesity as a consequence of reduced physical activities is becoming more and more frequent in the modern world and is increasing at an especially alarming rate in children. Globally 155 million children with ages ranging from 5-17 years are overweight. Lobstein et al. (2004) claimed that of these 155 million children approximately 30-45 million are obese (cited in World Heart Federation 2007). According to our own National Health Service (NHS, England , January 2008) statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet, 16% of children aged from 2-15 are classified as obese. In the under five year old group the figures for 2007 show that there were approximately 22 million overweight children and that roughly 75% of those live in the low-middle income bracket (WHO, 2008). We are creating an increasingly obesogenic environment where this rising trend in obesity may be associated with the increase in: Technologies and affordability of televisions, computers, etc. Fox (2004) suggested that the time spent being physically inactive by playing video-games, watching television and using computers has increased. Transportation has increased allowing little expenditure of calorie intake due to fewer or reduced physical activities (St-Onge et al., 2003). Children are driven to school or use public transport rather than walk as parents are worried by the apparent lack of safety in the communities in which they live (Fox, 2004). In a cross sectional study by Voss et al. (2005), within a cohort of 277 families in Britain 75% of parents with overweight children did not realise that their children were overweight; 33% of mothers and 57% of fathers thought that their children were at the correct weight when they were, in fact, obese. The current school curriculum allows for a minimum of two hours of physical activity per week. 86% of schools in Britain