Topic > The role of parents, school and media in childhood obesity

Human beings have made progress in life thanks to new inventions and technologies. However, one problem that tends to plague many communities is childhood obesity. Childhood obesity is a medical condition that affects children and adolescents as 60% of children in Canada are obese. Parents, school and lack of physical activity are all key factors that contribute to children becoming obese, leading them to suffer physically and mentally. Childhood obesity in Canada has become an epidemic and essentially a growing disease. Over the last 30 years, childhood obesity has more than tripled. This brings us to the heart of how childhood obesity has become such a big problem today. To understand the impact of obesity and why we should avoid it, there are many causes and contributions to obesity. However, as children age, it becomes more difficult to combat obesity. In this essay I will discuss the role of parents, schools, and the media in their contribution to childhood obesity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “Childhood obesity begins at home and is best addressed at home through greater parental involvement, increased exercise, and a better diet,” was once said by the famous philosopher Bob Filner. This quote refers to how children often see their parents as role models since many young children want to be just like their mom or dad. While this may sound nice, it's not always positive. Nobody is perfect, which means that children acquire the good and bad habits possessed by their parents. Furthermore, this concerns childhood obesity because children tend to eat what their parents eat. Researchers have found that if parents eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, their children are likely to do so, too. In contrast, parents who eat fast food or drink soda tend to influence their children. Statistics show that a child whose parents drink soda every day is almost 40% more likely to drink soda every day than a child whose parents do not drink soda. Furthermore, bad parental habits are not the only contributor to childhood obesity. Many parents have busy lives and work hard for long hours every day to provide a better future for their children. This causes parents to not pay much attention to their children, which often leads to not serving them the proper food. For this reason, parents buy fast food for children because they are too lazy to cook for their children. However, this is not the only reason why obesity among children is a problem. Like parents, schools also play an important role in the problem of childhood obesity. Schools around the world serve food in cafeterias for breakfast and lunch. However, several studies show that schools sell unhealthy foods that are popular among students, making many schools an essential source of income. Schools are responsible for the growing number of obese children as children consume 50% of their daily food at school, which often means that 50% of the food children eat on the days they attend school is unhealthy and causes the increase in childhood obesity. Additionally, cafeteria food is often mass-produced and cheap, costing the school $1.30 per child. Cheap food contains high levels of sugar and unhealthy carbohydrates. Over 30 million students eat lunch at school and 14 million eat breakfast at school.Thirty percent of high schools benefit from competitive food sales that generate more than $125,000 per school. As we all know, diet is an important part of everyone's life. Considering that children spend a third of their day at school, food is essential to keeping their minds sharp. Schools need to pay more attention to students' nutrition. For this reason, schools play a key role in the role of obesity among children today. Apart from these, fast food and media play one of the most important roles in increasing childhood obesity. Fast food restaurants spend millions of dollars on television commercials aimed at children. Recently, there has been an increasingly wide variety of food products sold to children in pass-merchandising featuring famous TV and film characters. Some examples of this include marshmallow cereal, SpongeBob Cheez-its, and Scooby-Doo. Fast food restaurants also often use media character pass promotion for children. In line with McDonald's and Disney, happy meals consist of toys from top Disney films. Happy meals include toys of popular Disney characters with Ironman movement figures or princess dolls aimed at both boys and girls. One study showed that one in six commercials aimed at young people promises a loose toy. Many advertisements also use cool characters from animated films to sell products to children, which research has shown works when focused on children. Furthermore, the food served in these fast food restaurants is mostly artificially created with high calories and unhealthy nutrients, contributing to the rise of childhood obesity. Obese children face many challenges in everyday life. Many obese children are affected both physically and mentally. Children who are obese have a difficult time keeping up with children who are not. When children are out at lunch, or in the parks after school, playing sports, obese children have more difficulty running and playing with other children. Due to the fact that they do not receive good nutrients for energy, they instead eat fatty foods which increase their weight making it difficult for them to participate in physical activity. Many obese children are constantly affected by bullying. Obese children often experience verbal bullying, which is the most common type of bullying against obese children, including hurtful comments and insults at school. In this article, evidence of the problem is shown, with statistics discussing a national survey of obese sixth graders, which found that 24% of boys and 30% of girls experience verbal forms of bullying on a daily basis. In conclusion, parents, schools and media have a great influence on the increase in childhood obesity. Parents do not pay attention to what their children eat and often influence bad habits in their children. Most schools use canteen food to generate income by serving unhealthy foods at low cost to maximize profits, which really affects children because 50% of their daily food consumption comes from school which is unhealthy, leading to a increase in childhood obesity also in the media. Fast food plays the biggest role in the rise of childhood obesity. Children are targeted on television to frequent fast food restaurants like McDonald's. With the new wave of technology inundating younger generations, advertising is brainwashing children into buying unhealthy food. All in all, I strongly believe that the obesity problem is not being adequately addressed by the government, so we should work together to help address this problem. Keep in mind: this is just