Childhood Obesity And Its Effects On Children And Adolescents

Part A: Literature Review Many children living in the world are well nourished and consume foods that contain sufficient amounts of protein, carbohydrate, fat and micronutrients in order to meet their nutritional requirements. However, there has been a downfall of recommended dietary standards considerably fallen short within children’s diets. Furthermore, an insignificant diet as well as physical inactivity, results in an energy imbalance and can lead to a major social issue of childhood obesity. The World Health Organization defines childhood obesity as a ‘serious medical condition consisting in excess body fat that affects children and adolescents.’ To address this problem, assessing the factors that have been suggested as contributing†¦show more content†¦Obesity is quickly becoming the most common nutritional disorder of our time. A range of factors has been suggested as contributing to the development of childhood obesity. The review of the following literature article †˜Reasons for the Prevalence of Childhood Obesity: Genetic Predisposition and Environmental Influences’ written by Gilbert Liu and Tamara Hannon in 2005 specifically centers their article on genetic influences, sedentary lifestyles and the vast availability of fast foods open towards society. Liu and Hannon (2005) introduces the article by questioning the influence or cause of the dramatic and threatening rise of obesity and responded with a metaphor of ‘genes load the gun, the environment pulls the trigger’ (Bray, 1998). The article provides legitimate statistics clearly indicating that genetic prevalence is one of the main reasons to kick off childhood obesity as Liu and Hannon (2005) explain that ‘genetic factors are thought to account for 25% to 40% of the variance in BMI by determining difference in such things as resting metabolic rate and weight gain in response to overfeeding.’ The article further goes on about complex genetic markers that ar e connected with the condition as ‘the human obesity gene map continues to evolve with up to 430 genes that are associated with human obesity phenotype.’ After a thorough explanation of genetics related with Liu and Hannon (2005) exposes how the obesity epidemic is linked within the