Megan K's blog

For this project I worked with Ashley D. and Allie H. We chose to study Health and Obesity, and the risk and health problems that it leads to.

 If you asked a child what the definition of obesity is what do you believe they would say? Do you think they have ever heard of it?  Children are not taught about obesity at a young enough age thus causing people not to know what healthy food actually is. If they would be taught at a younger age maybe the rate of childhood obesity would decrease.

In today’s society children are becoming obese and getting health diseases like diabetes. “An estimated 13 percent of children and adolescents ages 6-19 years are overweight” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). This number has almost doubled in the past two decades. A lack of physical activity is growing throughout our nation and causing this problem. Obesity is causing more health problems than smoking heavy drinking or poverty. Just doing 30 minutes of physical activity a day could help so much throughout your childhood and even on to your adult hood.

 The exact definition of obesity is very fat or over weight (Dictionary.com). Children and teens are becoming very obese and very unhealthy also most children have no idea what obesity is! “Between 16 and 33 percent of children and adolescents are obese” (American Academy of child and adolescents Psychiatry). Obesity is one of the highest medical conditions out there, it is easy to find but really hard to cure. Children learn less about obesity each day; children probably don’t know the difference between fruits and vegetables. It’s not just schools that should teach children but families should be able to cook a home cooked meal instead of going out to eat every day, they are also not teaching our kids the right way.

 Restaurants use all sorts of tactics, from toys of the month to fun mascots, which are infecting the young minds into thinking that eating their unhealthy food is good.  This is a cause of the growing childhood obesity problem.  The toys are giving children the wrong message; giving them incentives for eating unhealthy.  Some people think it’s a good idea to just get rid of them all together.  Blogger Heather Moore believes there’s a better solution.  “Replace the unhealthy fast food with more nutritious options and give children an incentive to eat that” (Heather Moore, Care2 blogger).  This idea would promote healthy eating and will help fight obesity in children.  Along with toys, mascots lure children into fast food restaurants trap.  Children recognize fast food mascots better than historical figures and other people of important stature.  This is a sad, but true fact that Morgan Spurlock proved in his documentary Super-Size Me.  These mascots brainwash children into thinking that eating unhealthy food is fun.  The fast food industry is one of the major causes of childhood obesity, and they’re the ones who can change it by promoting healthy food.

 Everyone is getting busier and busier, people don’t have time to just make a home cooked meal so they go out to eat and eat quick meals that aren’t healthy for you. Something we could do to help this isn’t just by cutting down fast food restaurant but having schools teach children about what kind of foods are the good foods or the bad and having school lunches have a little healthier food in lunch lines. Also in most schools they have cut gym or physical education classes due to money. Gym is exercise and we all need exercise. It would be a lot less expensive due to bills and things like that

To support our essay, we created a timeline about how obesity increased from 1976 to 2008. The purpose of this visual argument is to show how childhood obesity is increasing.

Works Cited:

“2004.03.02: The Growing Epidemic of Childhood Obesity.” United States Department of Health and Human Services. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t040302.html>.

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.aacap.org/>.

“Obesity | Define Obesity at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com | Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obesity>.

“Santa Clara Bans Fast Food Toys; Now Let’s Give Kids An Incentive To Eat Healthy.” Care2 – Largest Online Community for Healthy and Green Living, Human Rights and Animal Welfare. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/santa-clara-bans-fast-food-toys-now-let-s-give-kids-an-incentive-to-eat-healthy/>.
“Time Line Maker.” Worksheets, Lesson Plans, Teacher Resources, and Rubrics from TeAch-nology.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2011. <http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/timelines/>.