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Childhood Obesity Epidemic Paper

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Obesity is considered to be a global epidemic that is linked to early mortality and severe morbidity rates (Ko et al., 2007). The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States has increased a lot over the last thirty years. This causes a problem, since being obese may create other problems for these youths as adults, specifically diabetes and chronic illness. There are many causes for obesity: increased access to foods high in fats and sugars, larger portion sizes, increased calorie intake, and sedentary lifestyles (Sylvetsky et al., 2013).
Obesity increases the risk of several chronic illnesses, some that can even be fatal diseases. Furthermore, obesity is currently one of the most avoidable causes of morbidity (Miles, Rapoport, Wardle, …show more content…
The way the information is presented is quite important. When taking into account the best method to present the information, it is important to take into account the audience. One campaign that was promoting physical activity among sports found that those who had friends who were more active tended to also participate in more physical activity. Behaviors are influenced. CDC’s extensive research with tweens revealed that tweens like to spend times with their friends, playing, having fun, and having an opportunity to be active with parents. In this way they have the attention of both, their peers and adults in their life, that way they have a chance to explore the environment around them more (McDermott et al., …show more content…
In my opinion running public health campaigns is beneficial and has a more positive effect on the community. Although there is some evidence that public health campaigns can elicit a negative response in the youth, the research conducted shows that most campaigns evoke positive responses. They all increase the awareness of the audience, and some are successful in evoking long-term behavioral changes. That is critical, because we need the awareness to increase and we need behavioral changes to be made for the long-term, because only in that matter can we reduce obesity rates and lower chronic illness rates into

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