Obesity in America is a massive issue that has not been dealt with properly to this point.  To understand just how serious of an issue it is, one must understand that there are many life threatening diseases and health risks connected to obesity.  With 64% of Americans being overweight or obese, children account for 15% of this (Swann, Lynn C. pg. 2).  These rates are unacceptable and we as a country must do something to fight back against this growing epidemic.  Similar to the United States, Brazil has recently found that they have their own issue with obesity.  There is much we can learn from the actions that were taken by Brazil.  For instance, the Brazilian government converted preexisting government agencies that dealt in primary health care in order to emphasize obesity prevention.  Also, the Brazil used federal grant support in more obesity prevalent areas in order to better educate and help their citizens.  The US has not yet followed suit.  While it is my belief that these policies would be effective in the United States as well, it is most important to educate the children as the knowledge will hopefully follow them throughout their lives.

Obesity is a very serious condition and causes many issues for the individual that it affects.  Elevated blood pressure leads to a higher risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular conditions.  Also a prevalent condition among Americans in all age groups continues to be diabetes.  With 702,308 diabetes related deaths in the United states in 2012 alone (Micah. R, pg. 13) it is one of the leading causes of death.  Accounting for about one third of these deaths are children under the age of 18.  This is a sad reality that we, as a country, must face and fight back against. 

As people are treated for diabetes and other obesity related conditions, they must pay for their treatment.  This payment often times comes from a government program called Medicaid.  Medicaid was put in place to provide healthcare to low income Americans.  I was able to find an interesting journal article regarding a study that was performed in which the authors were able to project how much obesity could cost the Medicaid system in the coming years.  “Using nationally representative Cost and Use Files of Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey from 1997 to 2005, we used 2-part model and cohort-based simulation to evaluate the effect of overweight and obesity on LTC days and Medicaid expenditures across the lifespan among the current elderly population.” (Yang, Z. pg. 659).  The study found that with this simulation there would be a cost of $68 billion to Medicaid due to obesity related issues.  This is $10 billion more than the annual education funding as a whole (Camera, Lauren. pg. 2).  This is a huge burden on the taxpayers that could be alleviated to a large degree by proper anti-obesity policies.  For these reasons we, as Americans, must finally say enough is enough and do something to cripple obesity rates.

The public school system is the ideal setting to attack obesity as it is mandatory for American children to attend some sort of schooling up until a certain age.  If proper nutrition and health curriculum were added to elementary, middle, and high schools across the country every child would have some exposure to the importance that eating healthy foods and exercising hold.  Furthermore, it allows the student to learn these facts and values from a credible source as the school can ensure the accuracy of what is taught.

With “18% of public middle school students in 2004 having a BMI (Body Mass Index) considered to be ‘obese’” (Evans, Miriam Jones. Pg. 3) there is a disheartening lack of focus on health in public school curriculums throughout the country.  While an average of only 13 hours per year of elementary school classroom time is spent teaching nutrition and the importance of health (National Center for Education Statistics, pg. 4), it is difficult for students to retain and understand the importance of the information given to them.  By comparison, art classes make up around 30 hours a year in elementary classrooms.  While it is important to encourage creativity in our youth, this is unacceptable and should be adjusted to give teachers the time needed to effectively inform their students how to live a healthier lifestyle and maintain a healthy diet.  However, this is the exact opposite of what has happened in the American public school system.

There have been many cases around the country of schools cutting the funding to physical education programs.  These schools have effectively given up on the health of their students.  Many of the counties in this catagory have defended their decision by citing the fact that they do not have the funding to successfully develop their students in the classroom while also offering physical education.  This seems like a reasonable argument at face value.  However, studies have shown that when students are allowed to engage in physical activity during the school day, they are more capable of focusing on and retaining information (Faught, Erin L. et al.) The Journal written by Faught outlines the interdependence of a healthy lifestyle and academic success.  By maintaining a healthy lifestyle including physical activity, a healthy diet, and spending a limited amount of time in front of screens, students have been shown to perform much more efficiently in the classroom.  In fact, there was a study in which two groups of students were exposed to different levels of physical activity throughout the school day over a 16 month period.  The children who were exposed to 47 extra minutes of physical activity per week scored significantly higher on the test given to measure academic progress (Ahamed Y, Macdonald H, Reed K, Naylor P-J, Liu-Ambrose T, McKay H.) This is why it is vital for these schools with failing academic programs to promote their physical and health education classes as opposed to cutting the funding altogether and solely focusing on academics.

Aside from physical education, health and nutrition education is equally vital in combatting the epidemic of childhood obesity.  This has been acknowledged by the government time and time again with the most recent law being set in place under the Obama administration.  The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 was passed after much lobbying from first lady Michelle Obama.  This act regulated the lunches that were being served in public schools as well as helped children from low income families to be able to afford lunch.  I witnessed this change first hand when I was a freshman in high school.  One of the stipulations of the act was to remove soda from all vending machines within the schools.  This is a memory that stuck out to me vividly because I, along with many other students, did not see the need to regulate what types of drinks could or could not be purchased on campus.  After looking through many academic journals and statistical databases regarding childhood obesity, it is now clear that students as well as parents should embrace these changes as they are massive steps forward in the march toward a healthier generation.

With nutrition being one of the most important factors in living a healthy and happy life, the need for children to be exposed healthy diet and exercise practices cannot be overstated.  Prioritizing curriculum is a necessity if we are to make any progress in the fight against childhood obesity.  Schools should be focused on improving the quality of life for their students and prepare them to be as successful and happy as they possibly can be.  I do not see this to be the case in 2017.  With schools more determined to teach children trivial facts such as what color hair Julius Ceaser had than how to properly care for their body and mind, it is difficult to make any progress in this nutritional endeavor.  Prioritizing curriculum is a necessary and without doing so, schools are failing their students.  Although just teaching students the proper eating habits sometimes is not enough.

A healthy diet is particularly difficult to achieve for those who are in lower socio economic classes.  With many American families falling under the line of poverty, it is difficult for parents to afford healthy food.  This is a vicious cycle and is difficult to break.  It has been shown that children from lower socio economic classes are more susceptible to being obese due to this sad reality.  Many low income families are left with very limited healthy options in the grocery aisle as healthy foods are generally much more expensive (Sato, Priscilla M. et al.)  This is in part why the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 is so important.  The act allows children whose families cannot afford to provide a well-balanced diet or normal priced school lunches to receive a well-balanced meal every day that they need in order to maintain a somewhat healthy diet.  While simply replacing the previous meals with a healthier option is a step in the right direction, it is not enough.  Many students just eat whatever they see on their plates without any knowledge of why it is or is not healthy for them.  For this reason there must be a substantial amount of time within the classroom that is spent explaining nutritional facts and their importance.

The younger a child learns the positive effects of a healthy lifestyle and a well-rounded diet, the more likely he or she is to develop positive eating and exercise habits that will follow him or her for the rest of their life.  The best place to reach young children is in schools and this is why I believe that it is a shame many schools are not taking this responsibility seriously.  While physical education is often seen as a joke among students and some faculty members, we as a society must turn this stereotype on its head.  When the average American thinks about physical education teachers, often times the first image that comes to mind is the overweight, foolish caricature that pop culture has created.  If we as a society want our students to take this subject seriously in schools, shaming of the men and women in charge of them needs to stop.  

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended global, regional, and local actions be made to prevent the epidemic of obesity from spreading any further.  School nurses have been tasked with much of this burden.  Most guidelines put into place by nurses and schools across America are based on Body Mass Index (BMI) screenings.  These screenings are very simple essentially just taking a measurement of height and weight and find out if the subject falls into a healthy range.  While this is not necessarily as effective as finding body fat percentage in tracking obesity, it is an effective way to start tracking a child’s health.  Physical and health education both in the public school system and within the community is a vital tool in combating the obesity epidemic among youth in America.  According to a study performed by Professor Benson of the College of William and Mary states that as people approach their mid-40’s, their BMI can be correlated as being lower when the individual has a higher level of academic achievement (Benson, pg. 12).  The disappointing part of this however is that all the nurses are allowed to do is track the student’s BMI.  In some extreme cases, nurses may contact the parents and recommend a diet.  However, since weight is such a sensitive issue, school nurses often times do not get involved as much as they should.  This lack of action can prove to be dangerous however as it likely could lead to another figure in the previously mentioned diabetes statistics or other obesity related conditions.

As any teacher knows though, they can only control what their student learns within the classroom.  Most of the knowledge that a child will learn comes from their parents and that is one of the problems in the United States.  With so many adults lacking healthy eating habits, often times their children suffer.  When a child comes home to pizza every night, they begin to believe that it is normal and this is how unhealthy eating habits are passed from generation to generation.  It is vital that American parents wake up and realize the impact that they have on the health of their child.  Being the most influential person on their child’s diet is a large responsibility and should be taken very seriously. Sadly, I do not believe that enough is done to support the parents who wish to create a healthy lifestyle for their families.  This is why I think that the school should offer an outlet, more specifically the school nurse, to receive advice on how to modify their child’s diet in order to make it healthier.  This would allow for parents who do not know much about nutrition but are concerned about their child’s weight to help to improve the health of their child.  

Other easy ways that parents can do their part in protecting the next generation of Americans from the horrors of obesity include signing their children up for sports or even just influencing them to go play outside for at least 60 minutes each day.  Recreation league sports are a long standing American tradition and allow for children to enjoy themselves while also giving them exercise and play time needed.  As an added bonus, children get much more social exposure when competing on a team.  There have been many mainstream campaigns that have pushed for more recreational activity in children.  With the National Football League’s (NFL) “Play60” campaign along with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” speech there is a lot of publicity to encourage children to be more active.   While there is more attention being drawn to the necessity of physical activity, it is important to note that there is still a long way to go in terms of results.  According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), children should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes a day unless they are sleeping.  This is raised to 120 minutes once the individual turns 17 years of age.  Also important to note is that “Children, on average, spend more than 18 hours a week watching television.” (Swann, Lynn C. pg. 1).  This needs to be much more limited as it is not only detrimental to their physical health but also their psychological development. 

Clearly we have taken few successful steps towards progress in combatting this epidemic.  With the exception of a few positive examples, there is still much to fix in the way of teaching our youth healthy habits in order to and combatting the obesity epidemic.  The ineffective policies and worn out stereotypes that I have made reference to throughout this paper make it clear that we must implement new and reform old policies that will better promote the health of our country.  We must continue to fund physical education programs, health classes, and other programs that encourage physical activity.  If parents and public school systems do not begin to approach childhood obesity with the level of concern that it requires, we will continue to see the obesity rate climb.  With this higher obesity rate will come an economic disaster consisting of citizens receiving treatments funded by Medicaid for diabetes and other conditions brought on by this epidemic.  We must attempt to curb the complacency that is currently felt by too many of American citizens. There is only one way to achieve progress in the fight against obesity and that is through educating the public.  This is why physical and health education reform in both the public school system and at home are vital in the healthy growth and development of not only our children, but our country.
