Introduction
Topic
The primary research question is what means could achieve additional mitigation of childhood obesity. Therefore, it is also important to provide coverage of childhood obesity’s prevalence, current stage of research and other important aspects of this problem. Therefore, certain counter-measures are required to decrease obesity rates and prevent them from increasing in the future. The working thesis may be formulated as follows: preventing childhood obesity requires performing additional research and implementing certain measures.
Context and Background
Childhood obesity, along with obesity in other age groups, is steadily increasing. Obesity in people of various ages is currently a challenge of significant magnitude in the United States. According to various researches, childhood obesity rates are growing steadily since 2010, when obesity rates (especially in children) were exceptionally low (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2014). Nevertheless, one-third of the adult population in the U.S. and about 17% of children are diagnosed with obesity. In pursuit of overcoming this challenge, the U. S. Department of Agriculture developed a special nutrition program to decrease obesity rates. This problem focuses on women, infants, and children.
Additionally, it is mentioned in research performed by Cunningham, Kramer, and Narayan (2014) that prevalence of childhood obesity increased from 4.2% in 1963-1965 to more than 15% in 2000. As already mentioned, starting from 2010, childhood obesity rates increased even further. This allows stating that the scope of this problem became larger than ever before. The key definition that needs to be clarified here is obesity itself. Obesity in children and other age groups refers to excessive body weight that may result in additional diseases and an overall decrease in health.
Audience
The primary audience for this paper would be the scientific community and health care specialists. In fact, there are certain individuals that tend to underestimate the problem of childhood obesity focusing instead on other less relevant topics. Depending on their perspective on this issue, they may be both skeptical about the topic and share the position that it requires immediate intervention.
Structure of Argument
Problems’ Definition
The research gathered so far includes certain statistics and studies on the topic of childhood obesity’s prevalence. Additionally, there are certain publications elucidating the primary causes of childhood obesity and ways of its mitigation. Some authors also provide researches that cover the topic of necessary measures that need to be developed to prevent and eliminate childhood obesity.
Solutions’ Definition
Although the coverage of this issue is already significant enough, gathered information requires additions. The causes of childhood obesity still range from a sedentary lifestyle to genetic predisposition. These and other reasons are mentioned in researches provided, for instance, by Sahoo, Sahoo, Choudhury, Sofi, Kumar, and Bhadoria (2015) and Xu and Xue (2015). This indicates that there is still disparity among researchers regarding the primary causes of obesity. There are many reasons why obesity rates are increasing. However, they still lack precise information regarding regional and ethnic aspects of the problem. This means that there is a need for researches elucidating relations between childhood obesity and certain geographical and ethnic factors contributing to it.
Additionally, it may be necessary to gather publications on the topic of possible measures that may be implemented by the government to decrease childhood obesity and prevent it. There is very little research gathered so far covering approaches to providing information regarding the topic of obesity to various community groups. Although the resolution of this problem mainly depends on the implementation of various counter-measures, preventing further complications may require providing publicity with information covering obesity causes and ways to prevent it.
Conclusion
Proposed Achievements of the Project
The project’s main proposition is to ensure that certain levels of awareness are created, and the health care scientific community gives enough of their attention to overcoming this challenge. Additionally, it is required to make sure that the public pays more attention to receiving and creating information regarding obesity in general and childhood obesity in particular. Furthermore, the project may present additional coverage of the topic focusing on the establishment of a broader perspective on this subject. It is also important to create a particular impact on the mindset prevailing in the community regarding obesity. One of the biggest problems that health care specialists face when treating obesity is that even some patients may not acknowledge that they require medical attention and that their condition is their own problem. This challenge must also be resolved.
Concerns Regarding the Project
The primary concern of this project is that it will not achieve its goals. There are various reasons why this might not happen. Firstly, there are, naturally, other significant concerns in the health community at the moment, and they also must somehow be resolved. Secondly, the mindset that dominates in approaches to the understanding of obesity amongst members of the community and health care specialists prevents them from fully grasping the significance of this problem. Some people still perceive obesity as mere laziness and the inability of an individual to make important decisions in their life, and this may effectively prevent even health care specialists from carrying out their responsibilities. Furthermore, there is simply not enough knowledge on how to better approach the treatment of obesity as a condition. There are certain methods including both mental and physical therapy, but they are still unrefined and lack effectiveness and quality. Addressing these concerns will result in a better quality of the project as well as giving it additional weight that will certainly help it to achieve the primary goals.
References
Cunningham, S. A., Kramer, M. R., & Narayan, V. (2014). Incidence of childhood obesity in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 370(1), 403-411.
Ogden, C. L., Carrol, M. D., Kit, B. K., & Flegal, K. M. (2014). Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association, 311(8), 806-814.
Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N., Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015). Childhood obesity: Causes and consequences. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 4(2), 187-192.
Xu, S., & Xue, Y. (2015). Pediatric obesity: Causes, symptoms, prevention and treatment (review). Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine, 11(1), 15-20.