Poor Nutrition in Children
Poor nutrition in children falls first on the responsibility of the parents. Children are guided by their parents for nutritional and physical activity behavior patterns from an early age. Unfortunately, bad habits lead to serious ailments such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, and even premature death.
Unhealthy nutrition in children also leads to anxiety, stunted growth, weak immune systems, and psychiatric problems as well.
Less Physical Activity Contributes to Child Obesity
Kids are going outside to play less and less. Video games, cell phones, and computers are some of the reasons as to why children are not getting the necessary physical activities their growing body's need.
Decreasing The Risk of Chronic Diseases
According to the CDC, most kids do not eat a proper diet which leads to current and future unhealthy generations having an increased risk of chronic heart diseases, cancers, type 2 diabetes and obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The only cure is eating healthier and participating in more physical activities.
Why is eating healthier such a big deal? Healthy meals are nutritious and taste good. Instead of harmful nutrition bringing harm to your body, nutritious meals actually make your body function better and fight off disease.
Parents need to take more control over what their children are eating. Getting used to a healthy diet at an early age will help kids eat healthier as an adult. Anyone who changed their diet as an adult will tell you it's hard, if not impossible, to go back to fast food and unhealthy snacks after eating healthier consistently for a period of time.
Trash Unhealthy Advertising
An increasing issue are the unhealthy food ads that are being advertised to children. Celebrity endorsements influence 36% of the obesity in the United States. Billions are spent year after year on unhealthy advertising.
Believe it or not Hispanic and black children are marketed unhealthy ads even more than white kids. Black children are marketed to worse than Hispanic children. I do not think it is a coincidence that blacks are more obese and diabetic more than any other race. African American women are more obese than any other racial demographic. How they are marketed to as children is a huge factor to this fact.
Does this mean advertising is racist?
Neglect is also linked to obesity in kids. Parents have a huge responsibility to feed their kids a nutrient based diet on a consistent basis. If not, it will lead to the serious ailments and health concerns because the kids are eating more of a low nutrient diet.
Governments need to step in and aid in helping low-income families have more access to nutritious meals. They need to provide stronger legislation to block unhealthy advertising as they have the responsibility to protect their citizens from serious health issues, especially children.
Works Cited
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Poor Nutrition.” CDC, 8 Sept. 2022, www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/nutrition.htm.
