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What Are the Causes and Effects of Childhood Obesity

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What Are the Causes and Effects of Childhood Obesity
What are the Causes and Effects of Childhood Obesity? How can they best be addressed?
Veronica Clark
Eng 122 English Composition 11
Jason Romero
November 19, 2012

What are the Causes and Effects of Childhood Obesity? How can they best be addressed? Childhood obesity has become a big important issue over the years. This issue should be addressed immediately. The problems seem to be the food that the children and adolescents eat and a little to no physical activity. Many children lead sedentary life styles at school and home. At school, they sit in classes all day with little or no physical activity and they eat non-nutritious lunches and snacks. At home, they sit in front of television for hours, play video games, stay on the computer for hours and also eat non-nutritious foods and snacks. However, the focus for this paper will be on the schools and their role in this problem, so the question is: Do the schools have a responsibility to help combat childhood obesity? Yes, they certainly do because my claim is that the school system shares some responsibility for the childhood obesity. The foods that they serve are not nutritious, the snacks that are available are full of sugar and fats and their physical education programs need to be revamped or they actually should offer a physical education program. The schools role could be pivotal in helping to combat childhood obesity, but it is not because they are not doing any thing to help combat the problem. The role that they play is helping to create the problem through their lunches, snacks and their lack of physical education programs. The children spend most of their day in school, at least seven hours, so the schools should offer nutritious lunches, snacks and good physical education programs to help with this epidemic of childhood obesity that can lead to so many medical problems that can exist on into adulthood. Children and adolescents



References: Datar, A., & Sturm R. (2004) Physical Education in Elementary School and body mass Index: evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study American Journal of Public Health, 94(9), 1501-1506. doi: 10. 2105/AJPH.94.9.1501 Green, G., Riley, C., Hargrove B Thompson, O. M., Yaroch, A.L.,, Moser, R.P., Rutten, L., & Agurs-Collins, T, (2010) School Vending Machine Purchasing Behavior: Results from the 2005 Youthstyles

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