Obesity And Its Effects On Children - 1006 Words

One in three children in American is overweight. Over consumption of fatty foods combined with a lack of exercise brings on problems that are to be best avoided. Obesity in children can cause issues such as restricting regular bodily movement, all the way to heightened risk of death from stroke or diabetes. Stroke, the third leading cause of death in the U.S (Stroke Statistics) as well as diabetes, affecting 29.1 million people, (Diabetes Statistics Report) are problems that need to be addressed early in life. It is best to address the problem of being overweight while large amounts of individuals are accessible through the school system. With the utilization of a proper physical education system in schools, child obesity could be greatly†¦show more content†¦In 2012 there were 66,689 U.S elementary schools (National center for Education Statistics). If a program was established to make physical activity and education mandatory, where children could exercise and learn the be nefits of being healthy, the outcome would be the masses of students becoming healthy. Schools see the faces of millions of students a year and go on to see these students return in following years. Public schools offer a great medium to require students to get healthy just as they are required to learn math or English. Time allowed for physical activity will reduce the amount of overweight and obese children in the school system. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, two hours and thirty minutes of physical activity a week can help individuals stay at a healthy weight. A study conducted by Dr. Bret H. Goodpaster took 130 obese individuals to research weight loss techniques. Splitting the group in half, one group of individuals was assigned to lose weight solely based on good eating habits, and the other half of individuals was assigned to loose weight combining exercise along with healthy eating habits. Although both groups of individuals lost weight over six months, the group tasked with combining the use of exercise with healthy eating habits lost significantly larger amounts of weight and became overall