Prevalence of Obesity in Children: Petition

Running head: PREVALENCE OF OBESITY IN CHILDREN
PREVALENCE OF OBESITY IN CHILDREN: PETITION
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background......................................................................................................................................2
Aim of the petition...........................................................................................................................4
The goal of petition..........................................................................................................................4
Proposal of the petition guidelines..................................................................................................4
Action..............................................................................................................................................6
Need for support..............................................................................................................................7
Promotion of the petition.................................................................................................................7
Anticipated outcome of the petition................................................................................................7
Support to implement petition.........................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Obesity in children is the leading lethal medical condition that is affecting the whole
economy of the country. The children who are facing the issue of obesity are above their healthy
weight as per the age and height. It is also causing severe health issue to the children who are
associated with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The main aim of the paper to
file a petition for lowering the incidence of obesity and improving the health status of growing
population of United States. The petition is filed by the different school authority members of
different city in United States to the head governmental body. The paper has highlighted the
background information of obesity and primary purpose and objective of the petition. It has also
deal with the guideline of petition by explaining the anticipated outcome of it. The paper has
explained about the various way of promoting the petition and methods to gather the signature.
Background
Childhood obesity is one of the severe issues in the United States, causing poor health of
the growing generation. Children who have BMI of same or more than the 95th percentile are
considered as obese. (Ogden et al., 2015). The prevalence of obesity among the school going
children is high and is going on increasing. It is the known fact that obesity is caused by
unevenness in intake of calorie and its utilization. In children, the reason for obesity may vary
from genetic, environmental and behaviour reason (Hales et al., 2017). It is evident from the
research that obesity is the house of many chronic diseases such as diabetes or cardiovascular
illness (Flegal et al., 2016). In children, effect of obesity is visualised from two , which include
being short term or long term effects. In short term effect, the physical and psychological

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problems are associated with the stroke, type 2 diabetes, discrimination, low self-esteem and
even suicide (Ogden et al., 2016).
Data from the 2015- 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) highlights that
nearly 1in five school-age children are facing the issue of obesity in United States (Zilanawala et
al., 2015). The pervasiveness of obesity was 18.5%, which has affected 13.7 million of children
and adults. 13.9 % of Children of 2 to 5 years of age, 18.4% of children of 6 to 11 years old and
20.6% of 12 to 19 years adults are undergoing the problem of obesity (Lobstein et al., 2015).
Though decrease in obesity is observed among the younger children in the year 2011- 2012, in
the past three decades, increase in proportion of obesity has been found in children of all ages
(Ward et al., 2017).
Obesity in the United States is documented by age, gender, race and ethnicity. Hence,
understanding the occurrence of obesity in childhood, provide way to improve the health status
at all ages. Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance System showed that approx. 14.8% high school
going children in the US are obese, and more than 15.6% of the high schooler comes under the
category of overweight () Looking into the cause of obesity, it can be said that it is mostly
associated with the genetic factors, lack of physical activity and exercise, unhealthy eating habits
or collaboration of all such elements. It is known that in children who are going to school are
influenced by the unhealthy eating habits such as salty and junk foods, frozen foods, sugary
drinks or canned foods and is unable to maintain their diet plan (Johnson & Johnson, 2015). In
research, it is seen that school provide high amount of unhealthy fast food to their students
(Smith & Smith, 2016). They are also ignorant towards the physical curriculum activity and
engage themselves in watching television, playing video games and going for parties or spending
time with friends. Hence, in children, large ignorance regarding health is observed. Impact of