WELCOME ALL!!
This is my first blog. Actually this is my first blogging experience in my life. The purpose of my blog is to promote attention, awareness, and advocacy to childhood obesity. According the CDC 2012, he obesity rate for children has tripled since the 1980s. Currently 1 out of 7 American children are obese. The interesting statistics should seem eye raising, but I am not sure how effective the numbers impact the American population. I am hoping that the impact is made individually throughout the semester. Hope you enjoy the blog, but most importantly, I hope you are empowered.
Children can inspire their parents and help create change in the home but the parents ultimately have the control over the children's foods and physical activity. Parents need to practice the healthy lifestyle habits that their children need and that can sometimes call for major lifestyle changes, which can be overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteI feel that when the recommendations we make as health professionals are far removed from what they do on a day to day, the changes can be overwhelming. Some people tend to freeze up and not take any action when it feels like they won't meet the recommendation anyway. For example, the goal is to have 5 servings of fruits and veggies everyday but they're currently only having 1 or less. The idea of having 4 extra servings may seem impossible and no changes take place.
As health educators I think we really need to try to emphasize to the people we work with to start where they are and do what they can, any positive change helps!
Hey Shanette,
ReplyDeleteWe are interested in the same topic! Over the past few years childhood obesity has become a big interest to me. There has been an enormous increase in childhood obesity over the past thirty years and it doesn’t seem like we are anywhere close to solving the issue.
There is an abundant amount of information about childhood obesity on the web and we are bound to miss something. Having the same interest will allow us to learn new and interesting information from each other.
As health educators and advocates we have the opportunity to change this unhealthy trend that has lead us down this unhealthy path to childhood obesity.
Tracy
I am glad you chose to shed light on such a significant health issue. As the prevalence of childhood obesity continues to grow, I realize that we cannot successfully combat this epidemic without the assistance of our school systems. The behaviors and habits that contribute to childhood obesity definitely start at home, but I believe that both the home and school nutritional environment have to be equally addressed for sustained behavior change to take place. My son is 10-years-old and he and his 5th grade classmates have been limited to 5-10 minutes of daily recess so far this school year. Adequate amounts of physical activity can also be addressed in both the home and school environment in order to combat childhood obesity on a dual front. I am sure a lot of these same issues are what inspired you to select this topic and I wish you much success in this area.
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