Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thesis
Childhood obesity seems to be becoming more prevalent in today’s society. It’s reported more often in the media. The Free Medical Dictionary online defines obesity as “an abnormal accumulation of body fat, usually 20% or more over an individual's ideal body weight. Obesity is associated with increased risk of illness, disability, and death.” The number of obese people in the United States seems to be increasing more rapidly than before. The article “Changing the Tide of Childhood Obesity” written by Zephyr Crenshaw shows that since 1980 the percent of obese children between the ages of 6 and 11 has increased 6.5 percent, almost 14 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 5, and a little bit over 17 percent of children 12 to 19 years of age. How can our society stop these percentages from increasing? Our society needs to lead healthy lifestyles because the children are looking at us as role models and are copying what we do.
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what are the actions that should be taken to fix this problem?
ReplyDeletedo parents need to take most of the responsibility for this happening? Did we lose some of the values of healthy food and vegetables over recent years?
ReplyDeleteDo you think there is anything the school systems should be doing to enforce the seriousness of this unfortunate situation? Do you think the media such as television, video games, etc. are to blame for the laziness of children today? What solutions that we are aware of already can be improved and if so, how?
ReplyDeleteThe actions that should be taken to fix the problem is our society should start eating more healthy and not rely on fast food.
ReplyDeleteI think parents and kids have equal share in being obese. Parents let their kids eat and not teach them but kids also don't stop to think about what they are putting in their body. I believe that we have lost value in healthy food over the years. Some food we think is healthy is not.
I think that school systems could serve healthier food at lunch and teach kids what is healthy and why they need it. The media it partially to blame for laziness of children. Children get hooked on programs that interest them. The solution we all know is the idea of eating healthy. Do we do it? No, so we could improve by eating healthy.
Should programs be implemented for parents to teach them healthy habits, so they in turn can teach them to their children?
ReplyDeleteBrent- I believe that programs should be implemented for parents because many kids learn for their parents and parents should be able to know what is healthy for their kids and what is not healthy for their kids.
ReplyDeleteFor your thesis, how exatly are you defining a "healthy lifestyle"? Are you moving towards arguing that reliance on fast food is causing childhood obesity, or that bad eating habits of parents is to blame for this epidemic? Also, if you're going to look into schools and what they serve, you could look into movements that are going on to bring healthy food into public schools - www.slowfoodseattle.wordpress.com, www.thefoodtrust.org.
ReplyDeleteMegan- How I am defining a "healthy lifestyle" is eating healthier, exercising , and being able to tell the difference between good food (contains nutrients) for your body and the bad food(greasy,fried) for your body. I am arguing that there are many factors to childhood obesity and parents and the reliance on fast food are some of the major factors in childhood obesity. Thank you for the websites. I will take a look at them.
ReplyDeleteI think that it would be a good idea to teach children a healthy lifestyle at young age, although i believe that they also make their own decisions no matter what we tell them to do. Would the teaching of healthy lifestyles be taught at school?
ReplyDeleteYou mention how children are looking at "us" as role models; what are the obesity rates amongst adults? If the majority of American adults are also struggling with obesity, how can we turn to them to instill healthy choices and habits in our children?
ReplyDeleteAngie-I believe that healthy lifestyles should be taught and demonstrated at school because many kids do not understand what a healthy lifestyle looks like.
ReplyDeleteDarla-I don't know what they obesity rates amongst adults is but I will look that up. I believe that adults should be shown what a healthy lifestyle look likes. Maybe take a class or something so then they can show their kids.
Most of the people in our society are very busy and constently on the go and they turn too fast food for a quick retreat from cooking dinner when they come hom from a long day. How are u going to convince them to change they way they feed their kids, or change their lifestyle?
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