Kenneth+Szeto

Childhood Obesity in Canada due to Life Style Choices Many parts of the world believes that children are our future because kids right now will live to see the future, therefore they are our future. There has been many problems surrounding kids, some kids tend to focus their leisure time watching television and playing video games rather going outside and play sports with other kids. This has led to many health problems and these health problems might result in a shorter life span for humanity. There are different health problems surrounding our society these days, but the one problem that is being focused on right now is the problems with obesity. These problems may be caused by not having enough exercise and outdoor activities which results kids staying indoor watching television while eating different sort of unhealthy snacks. The biggest problem to this date and is fully supported by stats is that the consumption of fast food has a real strong correlation with obesity, not only in adults but in kids. There has been many campaign to stop childhood obesity and their main strategy is to make kids eat healthier food rather then junk food. The main problem with fast food is that all the food served to people in the society are considered a delicacy and very addicting. Many children are exposed to fast food at a very young age and once they have a bite of fast foods they will become addicted. The main issues in fast food that makes it so unhealthy is all the salt, sugar and fatty oil that are in the food, many companies use MSG, a flavour enhancer that makes certain food taste less bland, this is a very good way to create dishes that people will enjoy and love, but the problem behind this chemical, is that the body can not absorb a contaminated type of amino acid, a analogy used for this example is that the amino acids work as a mirror image similarly to a pair of gloves. Consuming contaminated amino acids, also know and MSG is similar to putting the gloves on the wrong hand, the body will reject the acid. Many companies uses this chemical because it tricks the tongue thinking that the food is high in protein and usually makes the person want to consumer more liquid because these acid will dehydrate the body. MSG is also a leading form of childhood obesity because of the food being addictive and creates more thirst in the consumer. When a person is thirsty in a fast food restaurant, they will often order another beverage, and usually the beverage is not water or bottled water, its carbonated soda. This creates a problem, because carbonated soda contains many sugar, which sugar will turn into fat and causes a person to gain weight. Some people believes that gaining weight is good for kids at a young age, but the weight a child should gain is through exercise which will create muscles but the weight gained from sugar is fat, which may end up clogging the artery of young children. There has been stats supporting the effect of childhood obesity. If a person is obese, regardless of age, their risk of heart attack increases and now statistics shows that the age of heart attack has started to decrease. Many doctors believes that obesity will create many different complications of the body, breathing disorders when a person is sleeping, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and some kind of cancer in the later part of life. The diagnosis of a person being obese or not is usually a full body examination and the calculation of a person body mass index and the complications will be diagnosed with a blood sample and determine if any of the complications above has been discovered. Many people at a early age experience the very common complications of obesity, the rise of the blood pressure, high cholesterol and breathing disorders are usually the main complication one will see in an obese person. Previously obesity has not been much of a problem, but recent discoveries of high cholesterol and blood pressure in children has raised a concern in the medical fields and in parents. Many people blame corporations which bring fatty foods and unhealthy snacks but the real person to blame is the parents and the kids themselves which choose to consume the fatty foods which lead to childhood obesity. In the year 2004, a documentary has been created to prove that if a person consumes fast food on a daily bases, will result in a unhealthy lifestyle. In the documentary, they have chosen a person with a fit body and he is then exposed to only fast food for a month, and within the first two weeks, there has been evidence that these fast food are brining the person from healthy to unhealthy, Within a month, his liver, cholesterol and blood pressure has shown sign of a negative change and after a month he has gained approximately twenty four pounds. In 1978 and 1979 only three percent of children from the age of two to seventeen were considered obese but, by the year of 2004, the total children that are considered obese has been raised to eight percent, approximately 500,000 children were obese in 2004. This is a major problem because if the numbers keep on increasing, the number of death due to unhealthy life style may increase and the average life span if a person will increase. Fast food can not be blamed for the only factor of increase in childhood obesity but the fact that schools have vending machines that sells chocolate and sugar loaded carbonated soft drinks plays a role in this problem as well. Many nutritionist believes that if a child eats vegetables and fruits as snacks instead of chips and candy, this rate of obesity will decrease but the problem is that kids are use to eating sweet and unhealthy food, it is hard for them to change their lifestyle. For example, twenty seven percent of sedentary men were obese while only twenty percent of active men are obese, therefore the choice of life style plays a great role in determining whether a person will become obese or not. If we want kids to have a healthy life, free of obesity and the complications that obesity will create, we must work together to change the life style of children. We must promote strong idea that eating fruits and vegetables are as fun and delicious as eating a candy bar or chips. We are not saying to not eat any fast food or candy at all, but make fast food and candy as a reward for younger kids, if they play in a sports league which require many physical activity then maybe treat them to pizza for dinner bi-weekly and fast food when they get a good mark for a test. One must set limits to what one’s child should eat, if the adults do not act as a good role model, their kids will not listen and will act the same as their parents. This will result in a higher childhood obesity rate which will result in many complications due to obesity. Reference [|__http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/050706/dq050706a-eng.htm__] [|__http://www.healthyontario.com/FeatureDetails.aspx?feature_id=4001__] [|__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me__] [|__http://www.msgtruth.org/whatisit.htm__] [|__http://centralhome.com/childhood-obesity.htm__]

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