Childhood Obesity: Risk Factors, Prevention, and Health Concerns

This report provides a comprehensive overview of childhood obesity, a significant health concern affecting children and adolescents. It highlights the causes, including unhealthy diets, lack of exercise, and socioeconomic factors, as well as the associated physical and psychological complications such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and low self-esteem. The report also emphasizes the importance of prevention strategies, such as limiting sugary drinks, encouraging family meals, and promoting physical activity. It reviews the role of family and environmental factors, and offers insights into the latest research and interventions aimed at combating childhood obesity. The report also includes the various references from the research papers.

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Childhood obesity
What is the health concern?
Serious medical condition affecting children
and adolescents (Sahoo et al. 2015)
Children when over the normal weight for
their age and height suffer from obesity
Extra pounds contribute to mental and
physical health issues
Physical Complications:
Type 2 diabetes
•High blood pressure and high cholesterol
•Metabolic syndrome putting children at risk of heart
disorders, diabetes, high triglycerides, low HDL
(Singer et al. 2017)
•Asthma as well as sleep disorders
•Bone fractures
•Nonalcoholic fatty liver disorders resulting from fatty
deposits and their buildup in the liver
Emotional as well as social
complications:
•Low self-esteem from being bullied (Simmonds et al.
2016)
•Develop behavioral and learning problems
•Depression and anxiety
Risk factors:
Diet: eating high calorie foods and beverages
Lack of exercises and sedentary lifestyles like mainly remaining
indoors watching TV and playing online games
Family factors where intake of high calorie foods or staying indoors
are not discouraged
Psychological stress where Personal, parental and family stress
increase risk on obesity
Socio-economic factors like low income, low education , low
socioeconomic status and others (Baidal et al. 2016)
Prevention:
•Limiting or avoiding the consumption of sugar-
sweetened beverages by the children
•Eating meals as the family
•Providing plenty of fruits as well as the
vegetables
•Limiting eating out like in the fast food centers
(Mueller et al. 2015)
•Teaching the child in making healthier choices
•Adjusting portion sizes appropriate according to
age
•Limiting the screen time on television to less than
two hours for children older than two years old
• Making sure that the child gets enough sleep
(Llewellyn et al. 2016)
References:
• Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A.K., Sofi, N.Y.,
Kumar, R. and Bhadoria, A.S., 2015. Childhood
obesity: causes and consequences. Journal of
family medicine and primary care, 4(2), p.187.
• Simmonds, M., Llewellyn, A., Owen, C.G. and
Woolacott, N., 2016. Predicting adult obesity from
childhood obesity: a systematic review and meta‐
analysis. Obesity reviews, 17(2), pp.95-107.
• Singer, K. and Lumeng, C.N., 2017. The initiation
of metabolic inflammation in childhood
obesity. The Journal of clinical
investigation, 127(1), pp.65-73.
• Wang, Y., Cai, L., Wu, Y., Wilson, R.F., Weston, C.,
Fawole, O., Bleich, S.N., Cheskin, L.J., Showell,
N.N., Lau, B.D. and Chiu, D.T., 2015. What
childhood obesity prevention programmes work? A
systematic review and meta‐analysis. Obesity
reviews, 16(7), pp.547-565.