How Child Obesity Affects Children From Low-Income Families
How Child Obesity Affects Children from Low-Income Families
American children are getting fatter everyday. This includes a variety of reasons such as the lack of exercise, steady high calorie diet, and junk food. This problem affects many children living within the United States, but children from low-income families are more at risk of becoming obese. The reason, not only stems from their limited knowledge of healthy lifestyles but the cost and availability of nutritious foods as well.
Childhood obesity has become a topic that garners much concern from parents, pediatricians, and politicians alike. During the 1970’s only 15% of children were obese, since then the percentage has been increased up to 30% (Donahue, Grisso, Orleans, and Paxson, 3). Despite the high overall levels of childhood obesity, impoverish children from ethnic minority groups present higher numbers. For example, 31% of Latino children, 23% of Black children, by contrast only 15% of both White and Asian children are considered obese (Grier and Kumanyika, 187). This makes up a 24% overall obesity for children within New York City. Asian American children are an exception to the general pattern of higher obesity rates amongst ethnic minority groups.
The government is now becoming more concerned about this issue. Some of the ways they have tried to alleviate this issue is by making programs that create “opportunities for students to make informed choices regarding healthy eating behaviors” (Datar and Sturm, 1060). The United States Congress has already considered several legislations such as the ‘Improved Nutrition and Physical Activity Act’ or ‘IMPACT’ ” (Datar and Sturm, 1060). Locally policy makers are involved in making guidelines which schools have to follow, such as “in California, deep fryers have been banned, so chicken nuggets and fries are now baked. Sweet tea is off the menu in one school in Alabama. 20-ounce sports drinks...
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