Childhood Obesity and its Impact on Individual, Family, and Community

Running head: CHILDHOOD OBESITY
CHILDHOOD OBESITY
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CHILDHOOD OBESITY
Childhood obesity and its impact on individual, family and community:
Childhood obesity is one of the most concerning health issues in the nation of Australia.
An estimated 28% of the children as well as adolescents in the nation of Australia is seen to
suffer from overweight or obesity issues. This has huge impacts on the individuals taking toll
both on their physical and mental health. Obese children are also seen to grow into obese adults
in their later life which makes them suffer from various chronic health issues in their adult lives.
Being overweight and obese increases the risk of the children to develop various medical
conditions (Gurnani et al. 2015).
Rate of type 2 diabetes in children is gradually seen to increase in the modern times along with
higher rates of incidence of sleep apnea, breathlessness and exertion, heat intolerance, flat feet
and tiredness. Being overweight and obese also affect the mental stability of the children making
them stressed and anxious from bullying issues faced at schools and other places. They become
vulnerable due to decreased self-esteem and low confidence in various aspects of life like in
sports, in making friends and engaging in team working and others.
Family members might suffer from guilty of seeing their children suffer from different physical
and mental health issues due to childhood obesity as they would feel that they could not manage
their health of their children successfully. They may suffer from stress and anxiety. They may
also face issues financial issues in managing the mental and physical health condition of the
children and would feel stressed and anxious about their children. They would also feel upset and
disappointed when their children would face stigma and discrimination due to bullying and
harassment (Kumar et al. 2017). All these would affect the happiness and stability among the
relationships shared by family members.

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CHILDHOOD OBESITY
Community healthcare centers would have to allocate health resources on these preventable
health disorders which could have been sent on serious disorders that requite treatments.
Children would not be able to concentrate on their academics because of their physical and
mental health complications of obesity that would affect their professional lives in the future and
would affect the community development as well. When most families of a community face
issues with childhood obesity, the financial wellbeing of the stability would be affected resulting
in lower productivity.
Relationship between childhood obesity and national priority health areas:
The issue of obesity had been added to that of the list of National health priority areas in
the year 2008. The health ministers of the nation have designated obesity as the eighth national
health priority after seeing the prevalence of the obesity issues that have affected huge number of
people in the nation making them suffer poor quality lives. Experts have stated that one of the
most important national health priority areas was its relationship to the development of many
other health conditions which include diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disorders, osteoarthritis,
asthma and many other health conditions. In the year 2014-2015, over a quarter of the children in
the nation accounting for about 27% of the children in the nation aged from 5 to 17 years have
been found to be overweight as well as obese where 20% of the children are overweight and rest
7% as obese.
Among the children who are 2 to 4 years old, one in every 5 children is seen to be obese
accounting for about 20% of the children of this cohort to be obese or overweight. Obese
children are seen to grow into obese adults who develop many chronic disorders because of
obesity affecting not only their physical health but also their personal and professional lives and