Environmental Factors Impacting Childhood Obesity: A Report

This report delves into the critical issue of childhood and adolescent obesity, examining the various environmental factors that contribute to its prevalence. It highlights the impact of both the physical and social environments, including behavioral and genetic influences, on the development of obesity in young individuals. The report discusses the effects of high-calorie diets, fast food consumption, and social determinants like socioeconomic status on childhood obesity rates. Furthermore, it explores the role of genetic and behavioral factors, as well as the influence of social environments and cultural trends. Potential solutions, such as promoting healthy lifestyles, school-based interventions, and parental involvement, are also presented. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for prevention programs to improve the health of children and adolescents, recognizing obesity as a significant public health concern.

Obesity Among Children
and Adolescents
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Introduction
 Obesity in childhood is caused due to the variety of reasons and is
regarded as a challenge in the public health (Hamilton, Dee, & Perry,
2018).
 There has been a great impact of environmental factors on the
occurrence of obesity which can be physical and social environment.
 Moreover, the childhood obesity has been profoundly affected the
children’s social experiences and the quality of life(Utesch, Dreiskämper,
Naul, & Geukes, 2018).

Obesity in Children and Adolescents
 Obesity has been causing serious threat to the public health and the
viability of healthcare delivery.
 In United States, childhood obesity is a serious problem and is putting
the health of children at risk affecting the 13.7 million of adolescents
and children with the prevalence rate of 18.5%(CDC, 2020).
 Also, the childhood obesity is the result of the kids living in unhealthy
conditions and abnormal environment.

Obesity and Environmental Factors
 There are behavioral and environmental factors that leads to the
occurrence of obesity.
 Further, when the individual is addicted to high calories and the
consumption of fast food then they are more likely to have obesity.
 The prevalence of obesity is significantly associated with the social
determinants such as age, sex and socio-economic status(Silva, Novaes,
Ribeiro, Longo, & Pessoa, 2019).

Impact of Genetic Factors
 There is impact of eating and activity behaviors on the obesity in
children.
 Moreover, genetics is the most important environmental factors which is
observed to be the main cause of obesity.
 Genetic factors can impact the causing of the obesity which leads to the
composition and fat distribution.
 Also, daily habits can get affected by the genes and are family related
factors that can lead to obesity in children(Yang, et al., 2019).

Impact of Behavioral Factors
 Behavioral factors can be treated as the environmental factors as
these are related with the eating habits of the children.
 Further, excessive eating behavior can be the major factor for the
causing of obesity in children and adolescents.
 The daily eating behaviors such as the consumption of diet food,
snacks and sugary beverages can lead to the prevalence of
obesity(Lara‐Capi, et al., 2018).

Impact of Social Environment
 Social environmental factors consist of the lifestyle, living trends and
socio-economic status of the individuals can influence obesity.
 In case of children and adolescents can get affected by obesity by
having the influence of educational and income level(Anuradha, et al.,
2015).
 These factors will decide upon the ability of families of child to provide
them basic necessities.

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 There is growing risk of developing obesity by the socio-cultural trends
in which social trends can affect the child’s tendency to be affected by
obesity.
 There are trend such as socialization, treating food as reward of God and
using as a means to control others can lead to obesity(Hinojosa,
MacLeod, Balmes, & Jerrett, 2018).
 These can be found out to be the development of unhealthy
relationships with the food that can lead to the development of obesity.

Potential Solutions to Address
Population Needs
 There are number of possible solutions that can lead to the addressing
of the issues of obesity in child and adolescents.
 The children can use the healthy lifestyle and avoid the consumption of
the junk and fast food which can lead to the healthy lifestyle of child and
adolescents.
 This can certainly help the children to reduce the causing of obesity
through the healthy habits(Utesch, Dreiskämper, Naul, & Geukes, 2018).

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 For adolescents, school-based interventions can address the needs of this
population.
 There is an increasing role of care givers and the parents that facilitate in
the development of competencies(Weihrauch-Blüher, et al., 2018).
 This precisely include the increasing the physical activity and selection of
healthy food can be the preventive measure for obesity(Raj & Kumar,
2010).

Conclusion
 Conclusively, it can be said that obesity in children and adolescents is
treated as the public health issue that seeks to be resolved.
 There is impact of the environmental factors which can affect obesity in
the children and adolescents.
 This therefore requires the prevention program which can affect the
positive health of the young children.

References
 Anuradha, R., Sathyavathi, R., Reddy, T., Hemalatha, R., Sudhakar, G., Geetha, P., &
Reddy, K. (2015). Effect of social and environmental determinants on overweight
and obesity prevalence among adolescent school children. Indian journal of
endocrinology and metabolism, 19(2), 283.
 CDC. (2020, January 1). Childhood Obesity Facts. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
 dos Santos, H., Reis, W., Ghamsary, M., Jackson, A., & Herring, P. (2019). Lifestyle
and Environmental Factors Associated with Predictors of Childhood Obesity.
International Journal, 7(1), 313-324.
 Hamilton, D., Dee, A., & Perry, I. (2018). The lifetime costs of overweight and obesity
in childhood and adolescence: a systematic review. Obesity reviews, 19(4), 452-463.
 Hinojosa, A., MacLeod, K., Balmes, J., & Jerrett, M. (2018). Influence of school
environments on childhood obesity in California. Environmental research, 166, 100-
107.
 Lara‐Capi, C., Cagetti, M., Cocco, F., Lingström, P., García‐Godoy, F., & Campus, G.
(2018). Effect of body weight and behavioural factors on caries severity in Mexican
rural and urban adolescents. International dental journal, 68(3), 190-196.

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 Raj, M., & Kumar, R. (2010). Obesity in children & adolescents. The Indian journal
of medical research, 32(5), 598.
 Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A., Sofi, N., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. (2015).
Childhood obesity: causes and consequences. Journal of family medicine and
primary care, 4(2), 187.
 Silva, F., Novaes, T., Ribeiro, A., Longo, G., & Pessoa, M. (2019). Environmental
factors associated with obesity in the adult population in a medium-sized Brazilian
city. Cadernos de saude publica, 35(5), e00119618-e00119618.
 Utesch, T., Dreiskämper, D., Naul, R., & Geukes, K. (2018). Understanding physical
(in-) activity, overweight, and obesity in childhood: Effects of congruence between
physical self-concept and motor competence. Scientific reports, 8(1), 1-10.
 Weihrauch-Blüher, S., Kromeyer-Hauschild, K., Graf, C., Widhalm, K., Korsten-Reck,
U., Jödicke, B., & Wiegand, S. (2018). Current guidelines for obesity prevention in
childhood and adolescence. Obesity facts, 11(3), 263-276.
 Yang, Y., Gao, X., Tao, X., Gao, Q., Zhang, Y., & Yang, J. (2019). Combined effect of
FTO and MC4R gene polymorphisms on obesity in children and adolescents in
Northwest China: a case-control study. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition,
28(1), 177.

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