Obesity: A Global Pandemic with Alarming Trends - Essay Sample

The world health organization warns about the alarming trend in increasing obesity as a global pandemic. According to the WHO, global obesity tripled between 1975 and 2016. 650million adults and 340million children and adolescents were diagnosed with obesity by 2016 (World Health Organization, 2020). World Health Organization (2020) define obesity and overweight as "abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health" (p.1). This discussion briefly analyzes the place obesity and overweight pandemics occupy among the students' population in various contexts and how the students may be equipped with preventive health interventions for averting the continuing trend in child obesity.

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The primary cause of childhood obesity in the world currently is the trend of unhealthy feeding lifestyle among most children and adults. While theory and policymakers continue to write nicely about healthy eating and healthy living, mainstream society continues to promote healthy eating and living. Fast food centers and large fast-food restaurants, for instance, continue to run highly attractive campaigns on mainstream media to promote unhealthy lifestyles. An example might be the burger and pizza adverts as well as chocolate factory adverts that continue to occupy center-stage in promoting unhealthy eating patterns. It is thereby essential that the education sector embarks on initiatives that aim to shift this attractive global attention from poor lifestyles that lead to diabetic conditions in the children. Scaring the children and the society with the most tragic consequences of the lifestyles they live has not helped a lot in promoting healthy living.

Various preventive approaches continue to penetrate research practices in multiple contexts to promote healthy eating and lifestyles (Fung et al., 2012; Magee et al., 2013; Spence et al., 2013). Magee et al. (2013) searched for predictive health patterns like diet, screen watching time, sleep patterns, and physical activity that may predict the onset and continuation of overweight and obesity in the children. According to the authors, interventions to eradicate obesity in children must aim at finding scientifically-backed methodologies for effecting change in such behavioral patterns of the children. Such lifestyle interventions may then be integrated and indoctrinated in the children to ensure the long-term success of the interventions through their adulthood. Spence et al. (2013) furthermore conducted an empirical analysis of a health intervention exercise for children. They found that assessing and changing the children's dietary patterns and promoting healthy living at an early age provided positive health outcomes in long-term interventions. From these studies, it is thereby essential to continue the conversation in childhood health and aim to indoctrinate healthy lifestyles in children from an early age for better long-term outcomes.

Bibliography

Fung, C., Kuhle, S., Lu, C., Purcell, M., Schwartz, M., Storey, K., & Veugelers, P. J. (2012). From "best practice" to "next practice": the effectiveness of school-based health promotion in improving healthy eating and physical activity and preventing childhood obesity. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 9(1), 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-9-27

Magee, C. A., Caputi, P., & Iverson, D. C. (2013). Patterns of health behaviours predict obesity in Australian children. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 49(4), 291–296. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.12163

Spence, A. C., Mcnaughton, S. A., Lioret, S., Hesketh, K. D., Crawford, D. A., & Campbell, K. J. (2013). A Health Promotion Intervention Can Affect Diet Quality in Early Childhood. The Journal of Nutrition, 143(10), 1672–1678. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.113.177931

World Health Organization. (2020, April 1). Obesity and overweight. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight.