Childhood Obesity in Australia: Impacts, Determinants, and Treatment

This report addresses the critical issue of childhood obesity in Australia, highlighting its significant impact on individuals, families, and the broader community. It presents statistics indicating a high prevalence of overweight and obese children, leading to both physical and mental health chal...Read More

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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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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

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impact their financial condition and emotional stability (Braun e al. 2017). Overweight and
obesity had contributed to about 7% of the total health burden in the nation in 2011 and 63% of
this is seen to be resulting in fatal burden.
In the year 2011-2012, obesity was estimated to have cost the nation’s economy of around $8.6
billion. To control such situation, children obesity needs to be prevented so that such children do
not grow into obese adults further adding to the burden of obesity
Relationship of childhood obesity and social determinants of health:
Social determinants of health can be defined as the conditions in which people are seen to
born, live, and work and age. These conditions are seen to determine the chances of an individual
in maintaining a good health and living better quality life. One of the most important social
determinists of health is the low education level and lack of health literacy among the parents
and family members of the affected children. Obesity is disorder that mainly results from poor
health behaviors and lifestyle choices like sedentary lives, lack of physical activities,
consumption of calorie dense foods and many others. When family members and parents are not
educated or lack health literacy about correct lifestyle choices, they tend to fail in helping the
children develop healthy behavior choices. In this way low education and lack of health literacy
among parents result in childhood obesity. Another important social determinant of health is
social gradient (Blake et al. 2016). People of low socio-economic status are seen to suffer from
poverty and hence they are not able to afford nutrient dense organic foods. They need to settle
for take-away or fast foods which are calorie-dense. Hence, such children are seen to take such
foods that make them suffer from childhood obesity. Another important social determinant of
childhood obesity is the obesogenic environment. This type of environment including advertising

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of fast foods, interests over playing computer games and Smartphone use in the indoors,
excessive academic pressure and many others often cause children to develop poor health
behaviors. All these result in childhood obesity.
Treatment approaches:
It is important to develop awareness about childhood obesity and its negative effects on
lives of the children among parents and family members so that they can encourage and help
their children to develop proper health behaviors and lifestyle choices. Firstly, parents should
encourage their children for healthy eating. When shopping, they should buy more fruits and
vegetables and less takeaway foods and limit the intake of sweetened beverages and fat food by
their children. They should discourage their children in eating on front of TV, computer, video
game screens and others as they are seen to increase the risk of obesity (Wang et al. 2015). The
right amount of food portion sizes should be served to them. Secondly, parents should focus on
helping the children take part in physical activities like limiting the TV and recreational
computer time, emphasizing on activities like swimming, running in parks, cycling and others.
They should encourage children to be more active throughout the day so that they do not develop
sedentary lifestyles. Many studies show medication use can help in overall weight loss but the
safety of these medications for a long time have not yet been established.

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References:
Baidal, J.A.W., Locks, L.M., Cheng, E.R., Blake-Lamb, T.L., Perkins, M.E. and Taveras, E.M.,
2016. Risk factors for childhood obesity in the first 1,000 days: a systematic review. American
journal of preventive medicine, 50(6), pp.761-779.
Blake-Lamb, T.L., Locks, L.M., Perkins, M.E., Baidal, J.A.W., Cheng, E.R. and Taveras, E.M.,
2016. Interventions for childhood obesity in the first 1,000 days a systematic review. American
journal of preventive medicine, 50(6), pp.780-789.
Braun, J.M., 2017. Early-life exposure to EDCs: role in childhood obesity and
neurodevelopment. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 13(3), p.161.
Gurnani, M., Birken, C. and Hamilton, J., 2015. Childhood obesity: causes, consequences, and
management. Pediatric Clinics, 62(4), pp.821-840.
Kumar, S. and Kelly, A.S., 2017, February. Review of childhood obesity: from epidemiology,
etiology, and comorbidities to clinical assessment and treatment. In Mayo Clinic
Proceedings (Vol. 92, No. 2, pp. 251-265). Elsevier.
Llewellyn, A., Simmonds, M., Owen, C.G. and Woolacott, N., 2016. Childhood obesity as a
predictor of morbidity in adulthood: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Obesity
reviews, 17(1), pp.56-67.
Mueller, N.T., Whyatt, R., Hoepner, L., Oberfield, S., Dominguez-Bello, M.G., Widen, E.M.,
Hassoun, A., Perera, F. and Rundle, A., 2015. Prenatal exposure to antibiotics, cesarean section
and risk of childhood obesity. International journal of obesity, 39(4), p.665.

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