Health Care Field Research Draft Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay

Childhood Obesity: Causes, Prevention, and Cure
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Childhood Obesity: Causes, Prevention, and Cure 
Introduction
Childhood obesity is one of the most prevalent healthcare problems in the world. It is also a cause of diabetes mellitus, heart disease, metabolic disorders, sleep apnea, and various other illnesses. It is crucial to know more about it in order to find ways to counter it. It is widely understood that obesity results from the imbalance between the calories we consume and the calories we burn; however, it has become confusing in children. Other than genetic factors, children are becoming excessively overweight due to increased screen time and lack of adequate exercise.
It has been found that childhood obesity is prevalent in children between the ages of 2-16 and affects almost 17% of children at some point in their adolescent years. It is an alarming figure considering the fraction of children at risk of developing chronic and potentially life-threatening illnesses. Obesity is also studied to have adverse effects on children’s developmental health and delays puberty in young adults. It can also have adverse psychological and sociological effects, hindering the relationship between identity and personality.
Discussion
There is a magnitude of reasons why children become overweight. The main reason is malnutrition. Many families either do not know about healthier food options or cannot afford vegetables, fruits, and fresh meat. In a country where sodas are cheaper than water, this is bound to happen. Many families do not even know how to prepare meals, let alone make the right dietary choices. Other culprits are convenient/ready to eat foods, such as microwavable frozen dinners, salty chips and crackers, canned sauces and pasta, and junk food riddled with high fructose corn syrup. Many cultures also believe that a fat child is a healthy one, which further adds to the problem.
Overeating, or commonly referred to as ‘binge-eating,’ has become a furore. Many children resort to such indulges of unhealthy foods as a coping mechanism to momentarily forget their hardships. A significant number of overweight children come from abusive families, broken homes, are routinely bullied at school, have been sexually harassed or even assaulted. It also leads to food addiction. Some palatable foods trigger dopamine production, which is a hormone released as a response to pleasure or happiness. If children experience pleasure associated with increased dopamine, it activates their brain’s reward centers indicating that they must eat again to acquire a similar euphoria. It is making them excessively overweight and unable even to identify the problem with their eating habits.
Extensive behavioral research has shown the adverse psychological effects of technology on children. Parents nowadays believe that the more technologically advanced their children are, the more accelerated their learning abilities will become. It, however, is not the case. The youngest age a child gets any gadget has changed to 2-3 years now. This is the most crucial time of their lives in terms of learning a...