Childhood Obesity Informative Essay

This paper is about Childhood Obesity: what its comorbidities are, the nurses’ role, how parents should become involved, and how the community can participate in fighting childhood obesity. Obesity is used interchangeably with the term overweight. They are both defined as a person having an excess amount of body fat that can contribute to later diseases. Several groups need to participate in order to ensure an ultimate strategy. Nurses should be well aware of the risks and know how to properly educate parents with this sensitive topic. Parents need to be active listeners, participate with their child, and seek assistance if needed. The Childs’ community can encourage weight loss with school diet and providing free activities. Obesity can be managed and prevented through family support, education, diet, and exercise. When talking about obesity it is important to take the child and parents thoughts into effect …show more content…
The nurse should assess, help plan, and encourage the family. Obesity is one of the least taught disorders by nurses, because they are afraid of parental responses: denial, anger, or disagreement (Coyne & Rabbit, 2012). Even though it is a sensitive topic and can trigger these reactions it is in the child’s best interest a nurse educate the parents. This can be done by asking questions and assessing the child’s life style before jumping into the topic. Assessments that can be done, include asking parents of the child’s weight history, eating habits, and identifying the BMI of the child. After evidence is gathered questions to the parents might be asked to promote thinking. For example is there not enough time to cook at home, is there a convenient shopping center nearby, or is healthier food too expensive (Jang & Whittemore, 2015). This can help the nurse pinpoint the cause of obesity. The nurse can then help the parents and child implement a