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.