The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity

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The article “The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity” from The Future of Children, Vol. 16 No. 1, Childhood Obesity the authors Ana C. Lindsey, Katarina M. Sussner, Juhee Kim, and Steven Gortmaker have collaborated together to construct this article published by Princeton University. The authors have used footnotes in the article appropriately to direct the reader to key points and their origin of the information. In this article the authors have come together to elaborate the importance of how a parent’s role in their child’s life can prevent and correct one of the nation’s biggest problems: obesity. The article touches on multiple options that parents have to prevent and correct childhood obesity within their families. Several programs and studies have been created that include how the child’s nutritional habits are effected by the way their parents eat, the child’s growth and nutritional habits, and ways to decrease activities that prevent physical activities and promote unhealthy eating habits i.e. Television. Certain programs such as WIC, Planet Health, CATCH, and GEMS along with many other successful programs have been mentioned in the article. The authors present the stem of the issue, childhood obesity, and they effectively present means to solve and prevent the problem.

The authors take a chronological approach to the article, which is beneficial with this particular topic. They begin the article by stressing the importance of the parents’ role in preventing and correcting childhood obesity. The authors goes back as far as the gestational period by including an entire section dedicated to the issue called “Gestation and Infancy”, and then work their way into the link between the “Parents Activity and The ...

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...as essential to the solutions that were presented towards the closing of the article. The authors constructed the article in manner that stated how the reader could prevent childhood obesity from the beginning and progressed into additional complicated situations as the child develops. In the article parental involvement, a variety of studies and the outcomes, and multiple programs were provided to the reader to prevent and/or correct childhood obesity. The article was well assembled, cited appropriately, and provided key topics when addressing the theme. The authors have provided a strong and concise approach to concern of childhood obesity.

Work Cited

Lindsay, Ana C., Katarina M. Sussner, Juhee Kim, and Steven Lawrence Gortmaker. "The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity." The Future of Children 16.1 (2006): 169-86. Print.

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