Why Are American Children Obese?

Our stomachs keep growing and growing...Picture provided by: Wix

Almost every January, many people try to commit themselves to the most popular New Year's Resolution: to lose weight. The idea of a 'new year, new me' is taken literally, with people frequently hitting the gym and attempting to make healthier food choices. These sudden, short-lived resolutions often fail because people focus too much on the end goal rather than the process.

New year, new me means hitting the gym

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What is causing the obesity rates to skyrocket? Why might children be packing on the pounds before 18 years old? Researchers believe childhood obesity has reached a new record because of poor diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices. The vicious cycle of trying to lose weight, giving up, and falling back into poor lifestyle choices have even trickled down

to children causing them to be clinically obese.

Glenn Gaessar and Siddhartha Angadi are researchers and professors at UVA and Arizona State University. According to their research, "obesity has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, and since 1980, obesity has doubled in more than 70 countries" (Angadi & Gaesser, p. 1). Obesity is like a silent killer because it has become almost ubiquitous in our society among adolescents and children. Still, it's becoming more alarming, considering children are developing weight issues at an extremely young age.

Dr. Kelly Frazier, a health science professor at Furman University, gave me her take on what the major causes are contributing to childhood obesity:

Larger Portion Sizes

Children's eyes are bigger than their stomachs, especially given the variety of foods they can choose from in school dining halls and restaurants.

Hungry for more Picture provided by:

Wix

Physical Inactivity

• Few schools require daily physical education classes

• Fewer sports and athletic back to school programs

• Recess has been shortened

• Young, skilled sports players make it more challenging for beginners to make the team cut

Lazy Days Picture provided by: Wix

Diet

• Easier access to drive-thrus and quick, cheap meals

• Higher consumption of fatty, saturated and processed foods loaded with excess sugars, carbohydrates, and sodium

• Advertisements of unhealthy foods - targeted at children to consume the most profitable unhealthy foods from subsidized, cheap crops (ex. Cheetos)

• Eating disorders - specifically over restricting makes children more likely to binge eat

Cheap, but filling

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Home/Environmental Influences

• Parents may struggle to find financial resources or time for healthy meals

• Latchkey Syndrome - leaving children alone at home and not monitoring their activity or food consumption

• Uninvolved parents could influence poor habits

Technology

• Encourages children to have a sedentary lifestyle

• Social Media influences children to have a specific body image - can encourage eating disorders

• Instagram is one of the leading social media platforms harming children's body image

Glued to a screen

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The Debate: Losing Weight vs. Changing Lifestyle Choices

According to the New York Times, adopting better lifestyle habits, particularly exercise, promotes better and more sustainable weight loss. Glenn Gaesser believes "people can be healthy enough at any weight, as long as they are active enough" (Angadi and Gaesser 1). Also, there is more long-term success of weight loss and management when people increase their physical activity levels, rather than just dieting. Here are some of the most interesting findings from Gaesser's research:

• There were considerable improvements to cholesterol, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes when people started exercising - regardless of if the weight scale changed.

• There was far more improvement in fitness when exercising rather than strictly dieting.

• People who only focused on dieting and restricting showed more weight than those who focused on exercise and lifestyle changes.

Gasser's research findings suggest that the emphasis on dieting and the result of losing weight take away from people keeping the pounds off. These results also indicate a move toward treating childhood obesity by promoting healthy overall well-being and fitness rather than just doing enough change to lose a certain amount of weight.

Actions to Reduce Childhood Obesity

Dr. Frazier and other researchers suggest that to reduce childhood obesity significantly, we have to address the root issue: the mindset. Particularly with replacing the weight-centric mindset with a weight-neutral mindset. Here is a brief description of the two:

• Weight-Centric Approach - only focusing on losing weight - traps them into the dieting and binging cycle.

• Weight-Neutral Approach - create a culture focusing on healthy habits and the process of weight loss (not the result or scale)

• Source: Kelly Frazier, Gretchen Reynolds (NYT), Angadi & Gaesser (pp. 1, 12-13).

This graphic shows the different cycles of a weight-neutral and weight-centric approach. A weight-neutral approach has more positive outcomes because people become trapped in a process where they lose weight and regain it through unstable habits via a weight-centric approach.

Source: Kelly Frazier

The weight-centric approach makes children fixated on the outcome goal: to lose weight. When children's mindset becomes overly focused on the result rather than the process, they try and do the quickest solutions to reach their desired weight. Most commonly, children will go on extreme and sudden diets that are not sustainable. They dedicate a week to eating healthy without cheat meals, and suddenly a craving comes along, and they overeat foods with excessive trans fat, sodium, carbohydrates, and sugar.

If children adopt a weight-neutral approach, they focus on their feelings during weight loss. Not only that, but if they direct their attention towards practicing healthy lifestyle choices, it could help:

• Maintain a balanced diet

• Eat unhealthy meals in moderation

• Slowly increase and continue moderate exercise

• Boost self-esteem and body acceptance

Obesity can affect people of all ages and have multiple causes, but today's choices will impact our future children. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, most of us will be parents within the next 10-15 years. It's crazy even to imagine, but it'll be here before you know it.

The point being is, we need to be focused on living a clean, healthy lifestyle ourselves and modeling this for our children. When we set an example of what it looks like to have a healthy relationship with food, exercise, and our body, our children will notice. Even if our children become obese, parents need to be supportive and help guide them towards healthy choices that are not focused on the scale. When you become a parent, be mindful of your choices for yourself and your children. So, when you find yourself at the dinner table with a family of your own, you might rethink pouring everyone an extra soda or eating that extra slice of cake.