Childhood Obesity Cause And Effect Essay

Childhood obesity has been significantly on the rise since the 1970's. According to the Center for Disease Control, about 1 in 5 children today have this chronic disease. It's a serious problem and detrimental to a child's mental and physical health. Childhood obesity is often blamed on the parents, for passing unhealthy habits onto their own children, but it should be taken into consideration that the lifestyle and food choices of families, as well as the weight of a child, is often times influenced by society and other factors. Thus, childhood obesity should be blamed not on the parents, but on society as a whole.
Childhood obesity is not caused by one clear cut problem. Rather, factors such as genetics, mental health, the influence of peers', and exposure to media can all affect the likelihood of gaining weight. "Reasearch has found strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious …show more content…
Another constituent of childhood obesity, in some cases, is growing up in poverty. Due to low-income, some families must resort to buying cheaper, less healthy options. In addition to this, families living in poor areas are also more likely to be sedentary because "parks and sports facilities are less widely available...Overall, the poorest counties have the greatest sedentariness and obesity rates."(Levine 2011) Obesity can be linked with poverty and therefore parents have limited control over their children's weight in this situation.
Many people argue that the root cause of child obesity is the parents, passing their own bad habits onto their kids. This is a good point, however most parents with obese children either have a lack of education about food or they have limited control over what their children eat, or both. The topic of childhood obesity is a gray area subject, blaming the epidemic on just one reason isn't