Childhood obesity. Children aged 5-19 in the United States.

CHILDHOOD OBESITY
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Childhood obesity
Summary
Obesity prevalence in children aged 5-19 in the United States has tripled since 1970 CITATION Fry14 \l 1033 (Fryar, Carroll, & Ogden, 2014) and data from 2015-2016 show that nearly 1 in 5 school age children and young people (6 to 19 years) in the United States has obesity. This is a disturbing trend that illuminates the probability of the inherent challenges it poses to the country when its population is increasingly becoming obese. Obesity in children has immediate and long-term effects on physical, social, and emotional health. Obese children are more likely to be teased and bullied by colleagues in school. Bullied children have low self-esteem and are more likely to be depressed which adversely affect their academics. Secondly, obese children are more likely to be obese in their adulthood if the necessary steps are not taken to ensure the child grows into a healthy weight and maintain it. Thirdly, obese children are t higher risk of having other chronic health conditions and diseases that influence physical health. Some of these conditions include heart diseases, bone, and joint problems, sleep apnea, asthma, etc.
Research questions
* Why has childhood obesity been increasing in the last few decades?
* What can parents/guardians of obese children do?
* Why does the United States have one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world?
* How does parenting encourage childhood obesity?
* What are the most effective measures for stopping childhood obesity?
Research summary
The incidence of childhood obesity shows that obesity is highest at the youngest ages and it decreases with age through adolescent (Cheung, Cunningham, Naryan, & Kramer, 2016). Incidence proportions may differ by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status and hence strategy to fight this issue must account for its prevalence and differences in age and demographics. The variables greatly vary, but the is an underlying commonality; fast food industries, children, targeted marketed with unhealthy sugary foods, lack of proper awareness of the issue in the community and poor design of children's programs which do ...