Obesity related to schools

The cause of childhood obesity has been studied by researchers for many years. Schools have frequently been identified as a key factor in childhood obesity research. In this study, the relationships between childhood obesity and family, school, and community factors are examined. Considering all the multidimensional perspectives surrounding a child's life, they explored the effects on body mass index (BMI) as a measure of childhood obesity. Childhood obesity and overweight is most appropriately an age-and gender-specific determination not always captured by BMI. Regardless of household socioeconomic status, children attending public schools have higher BMI than those attending private schools. Eligibility for free or reduced-cost lunch or breakfast programs at public schools is positively correlated with children's BMI. Also, children attending public schools are more likely to be overweight. In lower socioeconomic status households, school type does not have a significant effect on the probability of being overweight.

Fast food related to childhood obesity

Children have the highest levels of fast-food consumption. This includes higher household income levels, boy’s older children, blacks and children living in the South. The lowest levels were found in children living in the West, rural areas, Hispanics and those that are aged 4 to 8. Fast-food lovers consumed more fats, sugars and carbohydrates and fewer fruits and non-starchy vegetables than children who didn't eat fast food. Fast food contributes to increased calorie intake and obesity risk in children. The study also found that they also consumed 187 more daily calories, which likely adds up to about six pounds more per year. The results are based on children questioned in government surveys from 1994 to 1996 and 1998. Even though this study was taken so long ago, children's current levels of fast-food consumption probably are even higher because of an increase in the number of fast-food restaurants and in fast-food marketing since the late 1990s. The nation's obesity epidemic has focused attention on fast-restaurants, and many want to blame McDonald's Corp. for making people fat and tried to sue them, many fast-food chains have begun offering healthier food. Since fast food is such a big contributer in obesity, policy-makers are taking action to protect children from the fast-food trend, including efforts to limit soft drink and snack food sales in schools, and to curb food advertising aimed at children.

Required post, week of 3/27

Consider what needs revising (strengthening audience and purpose):
Does this fulfill the purpose of  (an annotated bib? a review of lit?) as we have discussed them? Yes

Do you share the research, teaching us why this is important/what it means in terms of your research question, as you go? Yes

Do you integrate quotes and paraphrases carefully, instead of “plopping” them in? Yes

Do you cite carefully (important for this text to function as it should, especially with an academic audience) and in an academic style, including both in-text and work cited/bibliographic citations? Yes

Do you use the sources to build your argument? Do you include a thoughtful statement of purpose and audience for the final project? Yes

Consider what needs editing (strengthening “correctness”):
Do you notice any patterns of error–surface errors (like comma splices, run ons, etc.) that you make repeatedly? Yes; others proof reading me help me make grammer corrections.

What grade would you give your drafts right now? How could you improve upon them? For what i have so far, i would give my draft a B. Whenever i finish it, i believe it would become a higher grade.

Let's Move!

First lady, Michelle Obama, established an international program launched on February 9, 2010 called Let’s Move!The First Lady launched the Let’s Move! campaign at the White House where she was joined by members of the President’s cabinet, including Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, HHS Secretary Sebelius, Education Secretary Duncan, HUD Secretary Donovan, Labor Secretary Solis, and Interior Secretary Salazar, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, Members of Congress, mayors from across the nation and leaders from the media, medical, sports, entertainment, and business communities who impact the health of children and want to be part of the solution.Let’s Move is collaborative, community-oriented, and comprehensive and will include strategies to address the issues that lead to childhood obesity.  It collaborates among the leaders in government, medicine and science, business, education, athletics, community organizations and more.The goal of this program is to solve the problem of obesity within a generation so that children born today will grow into a healthier lifestyle and will be able to achieve their dreams. Let’s Move! wants to put children on a path to a healthy future while they are still young. It provides parents with helpful information and environments that support healthy choices. The Task Force focuses on five main things, which are: creating a healthy start for children, empowering parents and care givers, providing healthy meals in school, improving access to healthy, affordable food, and increasing physical activity.

Breast Feeding

While doing my research on my project, I've found out that if you breast feed your child they're less likely to become obese. Breastfeeding is extremely beneficial for an infants health. I believe more mothers should consider breast feeding so they can raise a healthy child.

Overweight: A Handbook for Teens and Parents

Heller, Tania. Overweight: A Handbook for Teens and Parents. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2005. Print.

Summary:

Overweight: A Handbook for Teens and Parents by Tania Heller discuss how physical activity and nutrition, lifestyles of many young Americans has changed tremendously over time. She also talks about how a long time ago, people walked miles to get to school, to visit friends, and to see the doctor. There were also no television to watch, and no internet to keep children from leaving the house and going out to be active. Back then, they also spent their time cooking a fresh home cooked meals and enjoying meals as a family, instead of going to a fast food restaurant and eating precooked meals. The result to the change of how things use to be to now is the rise in obesity. It’s now affecting the younger population more than ever. With the increase in childhood and adolescent obesity comes a host of other illnesses and conditions: diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cancer, along with low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. Written for both youth and parents, this work covers the causes and effects of the rise in childhood obesity while presenting straightforward guidelines and recommendations for getting assessed and treated. It provides information on healthy nutrition and physical activity for young people, tools for self-monitoring and medical conditions associated with weight gain. Also, throughout the book, there are teens that discuss their weight-related struggles and how they overcame them.

Assessment:

This is a useful source because it includes real life stories about people that were obese and they provide strategies to overcome it. It also talks about how you can prevent obesity. This source is different from my other sources because this is the only source that has people’s real stories about when they were obese. It also has people telling their stories that are currently obese. They talk about how they feel and what struggles they go through. The goal of this source is to aware parents and teens that technology and fast food has become an issue in today’s world. Also, that we are not as active as we use to be. Therefore, we need to focus more on our health and the substances that we’re putting in our body.

Reflection:

Overweight: A Handbook for Teens and Parents was a helpful source for my research. It compares how teens live in today’s world to how teens use to live back then. I believe if we lived the life that they use to back in the day, we would have a healthier generation. In today’s world people don’t walk anywhere, because everybody has cars. Therefore, they don’t get that much exercise. Also, since everyone has cars, when they get hungry when they’re out running errands they don’t go home to get a healthy snack. Instead, they stop by a fast food restaurant and get something that’s most likely unhealthy. I can use this source to show that people became less active overtime and that’s one of the main causes of obesity.

Out in public

As i go grocery shopping i see a lot of kids running around the store. Most of the kids i see in there are overweight and what makes it worst is that when i look at their parent cart, their carts are filled with junk food. So i do think parents are a huge blame for this childhood obesity epidemic.

This Research Project

At first I thought this project was going to be alot of work. Then i realized that its not going to be that hared because the topic is something that i like to talk about. So far this project hasnt been too stressful and i been able to get some great resources regarding my research topic.

Our Overweight Children bibliography

Dalton, Sharron. Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Fatness Epidemic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Print.

There is a health crisis that is spreading throughout the United States. Children at younger ages than ever before are gaining weight more rapidly.  Today’s generation is the most obese generation of adults in history. Doctor’s are having visits from young children with harmful grown-up heath concerns from type 2 diabetes to high blood pressure. This book talks about what’s behind the statistics and diagnoses, and suggests what can be done about the major health crisis threatening American children. Sharron Dalton discusses topics like: what obesity is, what causes it, and why it matters. With supportive information from well known and scientific sources, she reviews current diet and exercise recommendations for healthy living, comparing these recommendations with everyday realities experienced by American families. When more than half of the children in today’s environment are overweight or likely to become so, it’s everyone’s problem. Dalton argues in this book that there is a need for a united approach to solve the problem. She promotes the complementary roles of parents, school and community leaders, and health professionals. Dalton makes an outline for everyone that may have a impact on the epidemic by suggesting new ways for parents and other adults to help balance children’s food choices and physical activities. Our Overweight Children is a welcome prescription for treating the problem threatening our children’s health and our nation’s future.

This book is focused on children and their special needs with regard to the prevention and management of obesity. This source is a reliable source because Sharron Dalton is a nutrition professor and she uses scientific evidence. She organized the text in three major divisions. The first describes the problem and its measurement, developing the question of whether or not any child should ever diet. Age-specific body mass index charts for children are included in the book which is extremely helpful to let you know if your child is overweight. Next, the book provides details of factors contributing to weight problems, including authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, fad dieting, and bullying. There are also links to many other useful books and videos are provided throughout the book. Dalton provides her audience guidelines for combating this growing problem at all levels. The topics and the references make this text incredibly useful and comprehensive. Our Overweight Children is an easy to read and clearly written book, and it will serve as resource for teachers, health care workers, parents, students, and social leaders.

The information in Our Overweight Children by Sharron Dalton is extremely useful for my research project. It provides me with the information that is related to my topic. It helps me by giving ways to I can help aware the environment to control and stop childhood obesity. This source helps me shape my argument by saying that everyone has a role and can be the blame for childhood obesity. It changed my thought about my original topic, that fast food was the blame for childhood obesity which in this case I found out that it’s  not the only blame.