Obesity in children Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Obesity in children - Essay Example (House of Commons Health Committee, 2004) For this study, the researcher will determine the main causes of obesity as well as its negative effects on a child’s health, psychosocial and cognitive developmental. Prior to the conclusion, the researcher will provide some recommended strategies that could effectively counteract obesity. Obesity is not only a serious health condition such as eating disorders but also a lifestyle problem that is visible within a person, family, and the society. (House of Commons, 2004) In fact, several studies show that obesity is caused by abnormal food intake or poor diet (Styne, 2005), genetic factor such as a metabolic defect (Roth et al., 2004; Rosmond, 2002) or the leptin deficiency and the use of steroids (Link et al., 2004). Lifestyle and sedentary behavior like ‘playing computer game or watching TV while eating’ is also associated with obesity. (Tremblay & Willms, 2003; Swinburn & Egger, 2002) The major cause of obesity is not certain because each person has different capacity of burning calories. (Jebb & Prentice, 1995) Binge eating or the habit of being unable to control over eating could lead to obesity. Due to the inability to control the amount of food they eat, individuals who have binge eating problems have a frequent episodes of eating significantly large amount of food all at the same time. (de Zwaan & Mitchell, 1992) For this reason, obese individuals tend to continuously eat even when they are already uncomfortably full. The health consequences of people with binge eating problems are related to the diseases that can be observed among the obese individuals. This includes health problems such as: (1) high blood pressure; (2) Type 2 diabetes or non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM); (3) high blood pressure; (4) atherosclerosis; (5) high cholesterol levels; (6) gallbladder disease; (7) atherosclerosis; (8) cerebral hemorrhage; (9)