Section One:
I have chosen to write my social problem paper on childhood obesity. Overweight children should be a large concern for our society. There are many health risks that coincide with obesity. Not only am I an athletic and health conscious person, I was a medic in the military and still carry an Emergency Medical Technician license. I am also an aspiring doctor so it was mainly the health and medical aspects of this sociological problem that attracted me to research it. I see people on a daily basis that could, more than likely,do something to change their health. Also, I have seen what obesity can do to a body at an exhibit called Body Worlds and it was not pretty. I wanted to learn more about the sociological reasons that cause it so I could protect myself, my friends and my future family from this epidemic.
Section Two:
In our fast paced society there is a fast spreading epidemic called childhood obesity.Studies have found that the number of overweight children have tripled since 1970. In 1970 5% of children in America were overweight and now the numbers have jumped to 15%. “The studies also found that not only are more American youngsters overweight today, but they are more severely overnight than before.”(Berg 2004: 4). Childhood obesity isincreasing everyday due to children eating the wrong foods and living sedentary lives. Social agents such as the family, schools and mass media can all split the blame of being the main contributors for this obesity epidemic.
Sociologists have agreed that the family is the most important factor for childhood socialization. A child who is raised in a household with overweight parents is more likely to pick up the same unhealthy habits as their parents and view it as normal. So, why do these households have such poor habits? The most vulnerable to obesity are low income families and people whose parents have a limited education. (Berg 2004: 33) With such inflation in property value and fuel, among other things, without a matching incline in salary the American dollar just doesn’t go as far anymore. This can posefor extreme health risks. People in low income households are less likely to see a physician on a regular basis for fear of not being able to afford it. Regular visits to a family doctor are necessary to living longer healthier lives. Without seeing a physician how is one to know if they have contracted a deadly health risk caused by obesity such as type II diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, obstructive sleep apnea, heart disease and cancer. Of course family income can’t be solely to blame. Going along with our fast paced society, fast paced parents have been generating a lot of revenue for fast food restaurants. When mom or dad don’t have time to prepare a healthy home cooked meal they can get away with picking something up at the drive-thru. The problem is that most of the items on the menu do not have the proper ingredients to fulfill a growing child’s nutritional needs.
School is another important agent of socialization that is affecting America’s obese children. “Children are snacking more today than twenty-five years ago.” (Berg 2004: 101) And the problem isn’t necessarily that children are snacking more as much as it is what they are snacking on. “Junk food”, as most people would call it, is just that, junk. Chips, candies and sodas have no nutritional benefits. In fact, they have quite the opposite. “The explosion of vending machines in public schools is a relatively new phenomenon. As recently as a decade ago, such machines were uncommon on campus.” (Nakamura 2001: 1) We hear talk on the news all the time about school funding and how the state’s funding is not keeping up with the huge influx of new students due to a growing population. Well, schools now have another solution. Some schools have been able to generate upwards of $100,000 a year through contracts with various vending machine and snack companies. This extremely tempting alternative to fighting for more money from the state comes with a great cost to the health and well being of the students that attend these schools. Sure there are nutritional facts on the backs of all the snack items but are the children receiving adequate education from the schools about how to interpret these facts and apply them to ones self? The answer is no.Not when the physical education department is one of the first departments to take the hit from school budget cuts. So why are kids using these vending machines so much? What’s wrong with the cafeteria food? “Moldy tomato sauce, recycled apples, no sneeze guards, and foods at unsafe temperatures, these are just some of the critical violations found in our local schools.” (Julian 2006: 1) With cafeteria conditions like this it is no surprise that children would rather spend their money on a soda, bag of chips and a candy bar. Of course, for these children, this is a question of choosing the lesser of two evils because there are evident health risks with either choice.
Mass media can also be a significant contributing factor to childhood obesity. Children spend an average of five-and-a-half hours a day using media, the equivalent of a full time job. (Kaiser 2004: 1) The obesity rates in children have increased with the growing use of media, such as television, video games, videos, and computers. These media devices are causing a shift from active healthy outdoor life styles to sedentary unhealthy indoor lifestyles. More than 60% of overweight incidence in this population can be linked to excess television viewing time even when factors such as prior overweight, maternal overweight, race and socioeconomic status has all been controlled. (Kaiser 2004: 2) The problem with being sedentary is that it gives children more time to snack and it lowers their metabolism even more than when they are sleeping. These two factors combined contribute greatly to becoming overweight. And of course commercials now are doing more cross-promotions between popular movie and television characters that kids watch with unhealthy snack food items and sugary cereal. “Marketing executives anticipate that children under 12 will spend $35 billion dollars of their own money and influence $200 billion dollars in household spending in 2004.” (Kaiser 2004: 5) With money driven snack food companies with no regard to the incline of Americas’ unhealthy tendencies there’s no telling when the childhood obesity epidemic will be under control.
Section Three:
There are three agents of socialization that are the main contributors to childhood obesity. Families of obese parents with relatively low socioeconomic statuses and limited education are one contributor. Another contributor are schools struggling with money issues who fall back on cutting physical education programs and rely on big contracts with vendors and snack companies to help their finances. And the last contributor is mass media which causes sedentary living and thrives at the expense of child malnourishment. I think that if health education was stressed more to children in schools they might be able to stray from the tempting snack items. Also, at the home front maybe parents could keep a closer watch to their children’s activity levels and make sure that the use of media tools was in balance with their outdoor activities. Only then do I think we’ll get to see a healthier generation arise. Who knows, maybe then next generation will get to be called the “health generation.” The part of my research that surprised me the most was when I learned about the ridiculously huge contracts schools were getting from snack companies. I learned that the Houston school district made a $5 million contract with the Coca Cola Company to sell only Coca Cola products on their campuses. It’s incredible how money driven society is with the lack of awareness of the kind of negative outcomes that might come about. I plan on taking this information home to let friends and family know that they can’t just sit around and let the television mesmerize them. It’s time to get out on our feet and watch what we eat.