Running head: CHILDHOOD OBESITY 0
Childhood Obesity
Student Name
HCM 320 2-3 Final MILESTONE 1
07/10/20
Childhood Obesity
- Public Health Issue Topic:
The broad topics selected as per the Robert wood Johnson foundation is about childhood obesity. Childhood obesity is one of the serious problems in the United State that put more children at risk of poor health. The associated factors that contribute to the rise in childhood obesity include a poor diet, low physical activities, and a rise in sedentary behavior, and biological factors like genetics (Kristensen, et al., 2014). Childhood obesity is associated with comorbidity conditions such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, sleep apnea, poor self-esteem, and even a serious form of depression.
The increase in body fats increases the risk of numerous forms of cancer such as breast, colon, oesophageal, kidney, and pancreatic cancers (Sanyaolu, Okorie, Qi, Locke, & Rehman, 2019). Childhood health contributes significantly to overall global health ranking and government spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Therefore understanding the impact of childhood obesity and the factors that contribute to its rise is important. Mitigation strategies for childhood obesity require coordinate effort between the public health and the community especially bring awareness on the importance of healthy choices on diets and physical activities.
- Economic Forces:
Macroeconomic Forces:
Macroeconomic factors include economic outputs, unemployment rates, and inflation. Inflation rates may directly affect food prices making it expensive for the American resident to afford healthy foods especially those earning a low income. The majority of African Americans, Native Americans, and Latino are high school graduates and college graduates with few who are university graduates both undergraduate and postgraduate. The education level affects the income one earns hence affecting the purchasing power of the population especially when inflation influences food prices. The unemployment level contributes significantly to the rise in childhood obesity because parents will not be able to afford healthy food for their children pushing some to depend on food a bank which is not fit for the health of children.
Parents affected financially due to lack of better employment by either structural, fictional, voluntary unemployment may not be able to afford to pay insurance premium which may affect the health of their families. Social factors relate to parents’ roles in initiating proper diet plans and regulating the behavior of the children. Parental styles affect children’s behavior hence contributes to the overall health of children. Authoritarian parents are more likely to control children’s behavior by demanding children to follow the rules set. Authoritative parents will explain the reason for setting rules and this will contribute to better eating behavior and reducing sedentary behavior. Uninvolved and permissive parents may not be able to control the child’s diet and physical behaviors because they are not there for children.
Some do not enforce the rules they are set due to job commitment. Cultural factors and media influence the food children engage in. Political and legal factors relate to the government spending on health and setting policies that directly lower food prices, improve the living standard of the resident, and building greens and fruits market closer to estates. Technology impacts childhood obesity negatively as it promotes sedentary behavior. Technology has replaced traditional games with technology enable games placed on computer screens and television. This change makes children spend more hours glued on the television which also increases weight gains due to less physical activities.
Microeconomic Forces:
The microeconomic force includes price change which is influenced by demand and supply. When the demand for green and fruit products is high and the supply is low it pushes food prices of these goods higher making them expensive. This means that low earning individuals may not afford the food instead they will continue to eat unhealthy food which exposes children to more health risks. High demand for houses and a low supply of houses push the house rents higher making it difficult to afford. The income earned by an individual will be shared between paying rents and meeting other basic needs which means that children may not get three meals per day, parents will not afford to purchase healthy foods or go for recreational activity with children. These factors promote the obesity level among children due to poor diet, living in a poor neighborhood where children cannot interacts due to security purposes and low physical activity when estates lack playing grounds.
- Key Regulation Policy:
State and localities are increasingly using laws, regulations, and other policy tools to promote healthy eating and physical activity. USDA issued a series of rules that have taken aim at school meals programs and the nutrition standard that guides their implementation. In 2018, USDA made the change in school nutrition standard related to milk, whole grain, and sodium requirement where low-fat flavored milk was reintroduced and the percentage of grains offered in school reduced (Blair, 2020).
- Benefits and Consequences:
The regulation promotes the health of children by proposing the health diet of the school-going children when the USDA policy proposed low-fat flavored milk was introduced in school and reduce consumption of grain. This rule is important in fighting obesity levels. The legislation improves the nutritional quality of school meals and improves diet quality for children consuming school food (Blair, 2020). The consequence of this legislation includes planning challenges because the school has to readjust its menu to meet the standards.
- Impact of Regulation or Policy:
The legislation increases the cost of procuring the low flat flavored milk. School budgets are affected when the regulation is imposed meaning state-sponsored school will need additional support and the private institution the economic budget will be passed on to the parents. The supply and demand forces will come into play making the product more costly because the demand for low-fat flavored milk will be higher than the supply in the market.
References:
Sanyaolu, A., Okorie, C., Qi, X., Locke, J., & Rehman, S. (2019). Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in the United States: A Public Health Concern. Global Pediatric Health, 6, 2333794X19891305.retrived from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6887808/
Blair, M. (2020, April 2). Comments from Richard Besser, MD, on Proposed Changes to USDA’s School Meal Nutrition Standards. Healthy School Environment, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation(RWJF). Retrieved from https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2020/03/comments-from-richard-besser-on-proposed-changes-to-usda-school-meal-nutrition-standards.html
Kristensen, A. H., Flottemesch, T. J., Maciosek, M. V., Jenson, J., Barclay, G., Ashe, M., … & Brownson, R. C. (2014). Reducing childhood obesity through US federal policy: a microsimulation analysis. American journal of preventive medicine, 47(5), 604-612. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4762259/
