Essay on Obesity: Nutrition and fast Food

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Child Obesity 1

Running head: Child Obesity

Child Obesity
Brittany Potter

October 14,2014
Composition 2
Professor N. Martin

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In the United States today, parents point fingers to fast food restaurants and school lunches, never realizing that the reason their child may be obese is because of the parenting habits in the kitchen. We live in a society where most parents both need to work and are often not home in good time to prepare nutrition meals. They run their children from this event to that event leaving little time for meal preparation. While parents know that fast food may not be the health choice, it fast and easy and often becomes the dinner of choice. By parents choosing to take the time to prepare healthy means it can improve eating habits it reduce the childhood obesity rate drastically. In the United States, 18 percent of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 are obese,
20 percent of kids aged 6 to 11 are obese and 10 percent of children aged 2 to 5 years old are obese. (The history of Obesity and Children, 2014,Para.1) When beginning my research for this topic I came across the center for disease control website which tells us the distinct differences between obese and overweight. This website tells us that Obese is A bodily condition marked by excessive generalized deposition and storage of fat. (Obese vs. Overweight, 2014, in table) And overweight is A condition where the person weighs more than what is considered normal for that height, age and sex. (Obese vs. Overweight, 2014, in table.) Why are these children overweight, is it parenting or do you think it is the school systems and fast food restaurants? In many high schools a nutritional class is offered, do you really think students are taking things away from this course or is this course just costing others money. If we think about it about 25­30 years ago

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most children and families were healthy not having any health complication due to obesity.
Think back almost 30 years ago most people walked places if they needed to go anywhere, most meals were eaten at home, and fast food restaurants were no way near as popular as they are today. In todays society most parents don’t even have the chance to cook a home cooked meal even twice a week it is either frozen or straight from the fast food restraint. I feel like the busy lifestyle with in the parents has had a role in the child obesity rate. As the child obesity rate is on the rise fast food restaurants are also on the rise to accommodate those who are virtually addicted to fast food. Michelle Obama tells us “we are now consuming 31 percent more calories than we were forty years ago–including 56 percent more fats and oils and 14 percent more sugars and sweeteners. The average American now eats fifteen more pounds of sugar a year than in
1970”(“Lets Move”, 2010, P3 and 4). With the obesity rate rising year by year we get back into this argument is this parents fault or is it really schools and fast food restaurants. The parents or guardian are the ones to blame. These individuals have raised their children and should be feeding their kids the nutritional things they need. For example a child should not be having fast food 5 times a week and having 6 or 7 snacks a day. I know it may sound a bit outrageous but these are things happening on a daily basis. Parents are not realizing that maybe if they took a stand and told there children that fast food 5 nights a week and 6 or 7 snack are not a good things, maybe instead of 6 or 7 snacks we need to have a fruit and a vegetable twice a day. I know growing up my parents would tell me I was not allowed to leave the table until everything on my plate was gone. In this article Natalie Muth tells us that this is one of the most common mistakes in

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parenting. “One is telling