Childhood Obesity: A Multifaceted American Crisis

Childhood obesity is a chronic health problem in the United States. Today, "nearly a third of youths are overweight or obese" (National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research). Obesity affects children psychologically and physically. Obesity is a chronic imbalance of more calories consumed than expended each day. Childhood obesity is closely linked with housing and food securities, children without stable homes are more likely to suffer from hunger, chronic disease, and malnutrition. Demographic, socio-structural, and environmental variables also play a significant role in the childhood obesity prevalence and incidents. For instance, environments with lower than the average neighborhood, availability of healthy foods and higher than

Recent housing foreclosure crisis, rising employment and the lack of affordable low-come housing has exacerbated housing insecurities. There is universal agreement among policy analysts that an inadequate supply of affordable rental and owner-occupied housing can lead to some adverse social outcomes. Low-income households are forced to distribute scarce resources between basic needs such as housing, food, and medical care. Childhood obesity has been exacerbated by a complex array of government and market failures; although many public policy measures could be put in place to combat childhood obesity a focus on housing, communities, and the educational arena is the most fundamental and possible

Specifically in these communities, there is a multitude of environmental, psychological, and biological causal factors that lead children to overeat, make nutritious food choices, and not exercise sufficiently. Public health professionals offer a compelling perspective on the developing successful interventions to halt the childhood obesity epidemic. "The Department of Health and Human Services has defined housing insecurity as high housing cost in proportion to income, poor housing quality, unstable neighborhoods, overcrowding, or homelessness” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,