As obesity rates continue to rise in In the US and UK particularly it is perhaps not surprising that we are seeing a rising number of overweight children. But just what is it that results in child obesity?
As is often the case there is no one cause of childhood obesity and there are a variety of different factors that result in obesity in children.
For instance, it is often the case that a child with overweight or obese parents will be overweight which suggests that there could be a genetic or inherited component to obesity. However, although this is actively being considered, no clear genetic link has been established yet and it is felt much more likely that it is the diet and eating habits in the family that cause obesity rather than genetics.
In the past few years there has been a marked change in eating habits with fast food restaurants appearing on every corner, junk food widely available and the shelves of our supermarkets lined with so-called 'convenience' foods that are more often than not extremely high in sugar. The days when we sat down to home cooking are a thing of the past in most homes and have been replaced by microwave meals or take-away food. Indeed, more and more parents are now choosing to take their children to fast food restaurants rather than to cook meals at home not just because it is simpler than cooking a meal but also because it saves a lot of washing up!
We have also seen a very marked drop in activity levels amongst many groups of children, spurred on in no small measure by the introduction of homecomputers, video gaming machines and now the ubiquitous mobile phone. Not surprisingly, as activity levels have dropped so children have lost their god given ability to burn off the calories gained from eating an increasing amount of junk food.
Television, the Internet, magazines and other forms of media also play a role as they all but dominate our childrens' lives and junk food, fast food and confectionary manufacturers are not slow in jumping onto this particular bandwagon and make full use of the advertising opportunity that the media provides. A lot of people would argue that advertising has done more to encourage the rise in childhood obesity that just about anything else in the past few years.
There are also clearly many social factors at play in today's world and a significant number of children nowadays simply eat when they are bored. In addition, they will turn to the comfort of food if they find themselves under stress, angry, depressed or anxious.
At the moment a great deal of research is being directed towards the causes of childhood obesity and its treatment and most of this research is focused on solving the problem through diet and exercise once presented with an obese child. However, with childhood obesity continuing to rise at an alarming rate, perhaps it is now time to tackle the roots of the problem and to stop our children from suffering from obesity in the first place.
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