Childhood Obesity

The Growing Obesity Problem in Children:

            Obesity has become more and more prevalent in the United States within the last ten years. Specifically, obesity has rapidly increased in children ages 1-19. One’s body weight is measured as a BMI, which means body mass index and also depends on the person’s height. In general, being “overweight” is measured at a BMI of 25-29.9 and being “obese” is measured at a BMI greater than 30. Obesity is a huge problem within itself, but it also can lead to greater issues like, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.

Defining the Problem:

Childhood obesity has more than tripled in American adolescents in the past decade. By 2010, the percentage of obese children aged 1–19 years old, in the United States, increased from 5% in 1980 to nearly 18%.

Relevance and Importance:

Having a healthy body weight is important because children are still developing and if fat is cushioning their bones, then their bones are more like to be brittle. Also, children who are obese usually don’t participate in any physical activities either at home or school, so the rate of obesity will continue to grow from all the sedentary activities. This problem is relevant to the US because it has more than tripled in a decade and is contusing to grow.

Why this topic interesting:

This topic is interesting to me because this problem is increasing and not much is being done to stop it. Many people feel that this issue can only be fixed with eating habits, but its more than just than. People need to learn to exercise and exercise properly by doing workouts that are high intensity and fat burning. Children also need to learn that being active is fun and rewarding compared to sitting in front of the TV playing video games and becoming a couch potato. Public Health officials shouldn’t expect kids to make all their healthy decisions on their own; parents also need to be actively involved literally and figuratively. Parents should be taught what is a proper diet and exercise for their children.

The points that I mentioned about the growing rate of obesity are just some factors that lead to this cause. Other factors and people at risk of becoming obese are the lower class, different races/ethnicities, and how much education one has. Obesity is not a problem that can be change overnight. This problem is demanding and will take a long time to just begin to reverse it. Physicians, Public Health officials, and parents need to put their full attention into the children to stop this problem from developing and eventually quadrupling itself. 

Contagion

In the movie Contagion, the main character, Beth Emhoff, returns from a business trip from Hong Kong and almost immediately drops dead from what the physicians in the movie believe was the bird flu virus. Before her death, she also infects her son who later dies in that same day. Since Beth traveled back from China, she infected everyone who came in contact with her on her travels. The flu virus became a quickly spreading pandemic, resulting in the closings of schools, parks, airports, and most public establishments.

I’ve seen Contagion twice now and after both times I became more conscious of what I touch and how many times I wipe my nose or rub my eyes. Although this movie wasn’t a perfect plot setup, they do a good job making the viewers aware of the germs all around them.

           

            This movie was a perfect example of an outbreak, which is a sudden start of something unwelcome like a disease. Following the outbreak of the bird flu, disease investigators came in a tried to identify the point where the outbreak started, map out the spread, and then focus on dealing with the problem. In the movie, that was Kate Winslet’s character’s job. The difference between isolation and quarantine is when you isolate someone you separate the ill persons who have a disease or sickness from those who are healthy. Quarantine is used to separate well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill. It’s basically a test to see if the person is immune.

            In the movie, The American CDC and the World Health Organization were not prepared for such an outbreak and their reaction rates resulted in a pandemic. A few key ideas I think would help with national and international preparedness is being able to share information. Communication with the public would help inform the citizens to take precautionary action. Another way to help plan would be warnings, via the media, that are unambiguous and consistent by giving specific information about who could potentially be at risk and what one can do to prevent them from catching anything. Also, if evacuations are needed, they should be ordered in terms of agencies. These are only a few of things that could help with emergency preparedness, but these three examples are some important factors that should be taken accounted for.