Childhood Obesity: A Short Story

Childhood Obesity

It was one sunny day and I decided to take a visit to the mall. Once I walked in the store "Forever 21", it was this one specific dress that caught my eye. It was as if I was in a movie and it was one of those scenes where the man and the woman have their eyes locked on each other across a room and everything around them is a blur, moving in slow motion. Except, of course, it wasn't a man involved. It was a dress. I immediately ran to, took it off the hanger, and went straight to a mirror to see how it looks up against me. I was in love! As I was prancing in the mirror, a woman and a girl came up to the mirror next to me with a few clothes in their hands. They looked like they were mother and daughter. The girl was chubby

and looked like she could be eight or nine. But, no more than ten because she had to be in elementary school. They were both doing the same thing in the mirror as I was with the clothes they had in their hands.
Her mother, the woman, left for a second.

So, now it was just me and the little girl in the mirror looking at ourselves. The little girl had a dress, holding it up in front of her, twisting and smiling. It was something that the little girl said to herself which I heard that quickly caught my attention. She said "Oh I can't wait to buy this. I'm going to look sooo thick in this dress." I just couldn't believe that she said that. In my mind I'm thinking what does she even know about being "thick" with her only be eight or nine years old? I wanted to open my mouth and say "No hun, you're not thick. You're overweight and if you keep that same attitude, you'll even be considered obese." It was the fact that she took pride in her weight, as if she didn't know what she was getting herself into. People should take this problem seriously, just as they do the other problems associated with children, such as cancer, down syndrome, and etc. "Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America has tripled, and today nearly one in three children in America is considered overweight or obese"(Letsmove.org). How is that not something to take seriously? Because childhood obesity in American is a growing disease that has become an epidemic, people should be more aware of this problem so it'll be able to be prevented and treated in the

future.
The question that is puzzling everyone is how did we even get here in the first place?

The word “here” is pertaining to the statistic that we have today. Although childhood obesity has become a complex and serious subject, the causes of it aren't. In fact answer is quite simple. The causes are unhealthy eating, not enough physical activity, and the children's environment.

One of the main causes of childhood obesity is unhealthy eating habits that children have adapted to. Basically, you can say that a burger has become the new banana. Sugary dinks and the less unhealthy food has become on school grounds. Many children that go to school tend not to eat the school’s lunch because they say it’s nasty, so they go right to the vending machine and get soda and a bag of chips. Since that’s where many children spend most of their daily lives at, that’s where the problem is escalating from.

Many public schools have been under funded, especially those in poorer districts. Because of this, companies like Pepsi and Coke have said that they will offer hundreds of thousands of dollars to schools who allow them to place their vending machines where kids can have access to them. When faced with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from these companies, which can be used to fund books, teacher salaries, and remodeling, it can be difficult for school administrators to say no, despite the health consequences of childhood

obesity(Activeca.org).

Schools actually let the kids purchase these unhealthy snacks just to make a profit, not realizing the fact that they're part of the reason why kids are becoming excessively overweight and bringing health risk factors along with them.
Fast food restaurants have played a major role in childhood obesity. The name explains it all--"Fast-Food". Fast foods aren't cooked with the proper nutrients that a child needs to thrive. These foods are highly processed, and contains large amounts of salt and sugar. Don't get me wrong. The taste devouring. That is what attracts us the most, that we tend to ignore what it is really doing to us. How can something taste so good, but be so bad for you?
The average amount of time that children spend in front of a T.V, or on their cell phones or anything else that’s delaying them to get active is nearly 6 hours. Now think about it. We have 24 hours in a day. Out of those 24 hours, most children and teenagers spend 8 hours sleeping and we spend 6 hours either watching TV, on our cell phones, or not being active. That’s already 14 hours wasted. What do we do with the other 10 hours? I bet nothing productive in order to decrease the risks of being obese and overweight. That’s what’s causing us to get to the point we are at now. Children are not being physically active anymore.
One of the main reasons is because the technology we have today is captivating us, predominantly children. For example we’ll rather get a kindle to read books on there than getting up and walking to the book store or library to get one. Or, Instead going outside to play with friends, now there is technology here children can connect and chat with their friends through a video game.
Schools are becoming the major cause too. This is because they don’t receive an adequate amount of daily physical education. School do not recognize this is a problem yet because they’re too much worried about other things, like academics. Schools are replacing recess time with staying in the class room to learn. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying school education is not