Obesity is a condition that results from excessive accumulation of fat mass in the body resulting in impaired health. When this condition occurs during childhood, there is a high likelihood of being perpetuated into adulthood (Wolfson et al., 2015). The problem of childhood obesity is of serious public health concern especially with the rise and increase in fast foods and a reduction in physical activity levels. The huge interest in this topic comes from the overwhelmingly high statistics of childhood obesity. The emotional trauma that comes from victimization, teasing as well as embarrassment in social setting such as schools make the obese children suffer in their self-esteem (Buchner et al., 2015). The health of an obese child is also usually in jeopardy. From this, the major question remains; it is depictive of the failure of parents? Does it show negligence? This paper seeks to discuss more on the questions posed with thesis that parents’ negligence is a contributor to childhood obesity.
The condition of childhood obesity is currently expanding at alarming rates as compared to the previous centuries. As observed, the rates of obesity in children have tremendously increased from four percent to almost seven percent between the years of 1990 and 2010. Estimations in the global perspective show that over forty two million children aged five years and below were obese. The matter is worsened by the realization that over seventy percent of the forty two million cases were in developing countries. From the expert projections, the number is expected to rise all the more reaching over ninety percent in year 2020 (Danese et al., 2014). These statistics show the need for putting in concerted efforts to correct the anomaly and stop further rise in childhood obesity. The major stakeholders in the health of children are the parents; hence they should be on the forefront of fighting childhood obesity.
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Recently, the gravity of the consequences of childhood obesity has brought into the lime light the role that parents play in promoting or inhibiting development of the condition (Wolfson et al., 2015). In America, childhood obesity has come to be recognized as befitting the intervention of the state. This becomes especially serious if the child is morbidly obese where the state will get directly involved in the family unit (Danese et al., 2014). Individual factors that come into play in causing obesity are such as hypothyroidism and metabolic disorders.
However, these disorders are easily manageable if the parents take good care of their children and follow up on their children’s health. The hugely blamed reason for childhood obesity increase is parental control. Evidence from research indicates that children tend to copy the lifestyles of their parents thus a negligent parent will easily be the force behind their child’s obese condition (Buchner et al., 2015). Evidence has it that the major factors that cause obesity are the lifestyle patterns especially the sedentary type of lifestyle coupled with unhealthy eating habits. Notably, most parents tend to buy junk foods to their children which later prove to be detrimental (Wolfson et al., 2015). This causes the children to get accustomed to eating the junk foods oblivious of the negative impact that awaits them in the near future.
The parents are usually in charge of determining what their children eat and are actually the ones who plan the child’s diet. Furthermore, the parents provide money to their children for buying food if they are already school going children (Buchner et al., 2015). The physical activity levels of a child are also hugely dependent on the parents. If the parents encourage and engage in regular physical activity with their child, incidences of childhood obesity will be minimized. On the contrary, promoting a sedentary lifestyle to their children increases the risk of developing childhood obesity (Buchner et al., 2015). . Lack of instituting regulations on the hours of watching television by the child is detrimental to their health. If the parent promotes playing of video games rather than outdoor games, they are usually laying the foundation of childhood obesity. The long term ramifications of this improper parenting will be an obese child. If left unchecked, the level of obesity may reach morbid level which becomes life threatening.
From the world health organization, health should be total wellbeing in the physical, social and mental aspects of an individual and not just the absence of an illness or infirmity. Based on this definition, obesity falls under the category of lack of physical wellbeing. Therefore, parents who allow their children to become obese through negligence infringe on the rights of their children to good health (Buchner et al., 2015). In addition, they violate the right of a child to proper growth and development through allowing obesity to impede the health of the child. This puts the state to work on its mandate of protecting children by intervening in cases where parents have complacently let the nutrition status of their children to bloat, causing social and medical implications on the child.
Much as parents play a huge role in determining the nutrition status of their children, the schools also have a stake in the problem. It is evident that children spend a huge portion of their time at school, going up to seven hours a day. In a week, the child spends five days at school which is a huge amount of time (Buchner et al., 2015). While at school, the child gets a huge variety of fast foods that are unhealthy, usually known as junk foods that are readily available in vending machines. In most cases, the children do not have much of a choice to healthy foods. This contributes to the problem of childhood obesity.
On their part, children also have a role to play in becoming obese or maintaining a healthy nutrition status. In most cases, children prefer unhealthy foods such as sodas and candy to the healthy foods such as vegetables and fruits. It has been note that in some cases, a child may be well aware of the right food choices but goes on to make the wrong choices when it comes to purchasing (Buchner et al., 2015). Additionally, well taught children who are disciplined in making right choices of food may get influenced by their peers to abandon the healthy lifestyle and choose the unhealthy options of food. Children may also harbor laziness in them where they may be unwilling to engage in physical activities and choose to watch television all through. This when coupled with consumption of unhealthy foods such as soda and candy result to obesity?
In conclusion, it is indeed true that parents are the major determinants of their children’s nutrition status. Negligence on checking the child’s nutrition status as well as promoting unhealthy lifestyles in their children are tantamount to causing o0besity in the children however, If the parents do everything right, and act as good role models in matter to do with nutrition of their children, the rates of obesity are likely to reduce. The parents should also dedicate adequate time in educating their children on making healthy food choices and proper lifestyles that will positively impact the health of their children. Purposeful efforts by parents need to be checked i in the fight against childhood obesity. Just like the intentional infliction of starvation on a child is treated as a high level of child abuse, negligence and letting a child get obese should also receive an equal treatment.
References
Buchner-Eveleigh, M., & McLachlan, L. (2015). Obesity amongst children: child abuse or parental neglect?.
Danese, A., & Tan, M. (2014). Childhood maltreatment and obesity: systematic review and meta-analysis. Molecular psychiatry, 19(5), 544-554.
Wolfson, J. A., Gollust, S. E., Niederdeppe, J., & Barry, C. L. (2015). The role of parents in public views of strategies to address childhood obesity in the United States. Milbank Quarterly, 93(1), 73-111.
