Parents´ Negligence Leads to Child Obesity

As many people may have already noticed, child and teen obesity has become a greater problem in the United States. Could child and teen obesity be a reflection of a parent’s negligence? Many families don’t have time to cook nutritional meals, which causes many families to eat out nearly more than once a week. School cooked lunches aren’t exactly healthy either and many choices children make, parents don’t know about. Also, the media has a big impact on how child and teens eat. When children see commercials, they either want their parents to get the advertised product or the teenagers go get it themselves. Many parents believe it is about the exercise that will keep children fit and healthy, but instead it’s mostly about the food the children are eating. Some people are realizing this is a bigger issue and taking action. As defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary, negligence is failure to take the care that a responsible person usually takes. How could this be because of negligence? Parents don’t realize that they’re putting their children’s long term health effects in danger. Most parents don’t think about what they’re feeding them because the children are young and health isn’t the biggest factor. The food parents feed their children when they’re young, will affect them in the long run. Children and teen obesity is a reflection of their parents’ negligence, even though they might not realize it.
Time is an issue with families, whether its work, school, or sports. Sometimes people go from activity to activity right after school. Between activities, there is usually not enough time to go home and cook a healthy meal, so they resort to fast food. Research by Helen Lawson (2013) showed that only one in six mothers cook a h...

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...hildren will probably crave after seeing it. Obesity increases from the snacks they eat and it shows negligence because the parents aren’t doing anything to help resolve the problem, like making the kids do something else besides TV. Also, The American Academy of Pediatrics (2011) stated snacking also increases while watching TV or movies. While children enjoy movies, they usually prefer popcorn, soda, and candy, which have very little nutritional value. The parents allow them to eat popcorn and candy and keep refilling throughout the movie; most people don’t think much of it. When a child eats all the popcorn and is full for the rest of day, it increases the risk of obesity because they won’t have a well-balanced meal throughout the day. This demonstrates parent negligence because they allow the kids to keep refilling the popcorn, even knowing how unhealthy it is.