Brooklyn College Andre Grant Obesity in Children: What We Can Do To Stem The Tide?

It goes without saying that obesity in children has reached the levels of an epidemic. In developed countries around the world, health care programs, schools and homes are filled with what used to be the most fit and active amongst us: children. But, what has led to this increase in girth? There are many factors to blame. From technology to parenting, to fast food and beyond this person or that has found it convenient to level their hand at some culprit but it needn't go further than our lives. Children are mere imitations of adults. Some say the best of us, others the worst. They are however, the most beautiful. At least they used to be and if they are to take us into the next generation of unknown challenges we must give them the best opportunity to do so. Here, we will look at communities that have taken the offensive when it comes to childhood obesity and have succeeded while others have failed. We will also take a look at what we in the United States must do to meet this challenge like we have met any other.

According to Sturm, The number of overweight and obese youth has increased in recent decades.. Yet almost no data are available to assess how the lives of children have changed during the obesity epidemic. This one phrase is indicative of the carelessness by which this epidemic has been handled. As no one thought that this trend would continue into the deluge that exists today. There are several factors that have caused this trend over the years and none of them have been looked at them accurately. Namely, there is a fundamental difference between the way this generation of children interacts with the world than in the past. This difference coupled with environmental changes has caused a devastating affect on how children play. Now, play is not just some modifier we use to bring back faithful childhood memories. It is at the core of the Obesity debate. Play does not only use the muscles found in the arms, legs and hearts of children but also utilizes their imagination. As Sturm again states, In education circles, the hypothesis that homework, or, more generally, the academic excellence

movement, plays an important role in weight gain (and/or declining physical fitness) among children appears to be widely accepted, even outside the United States. So, it would seem to suggest that not only does more homework make jack and jill dull boys and girls but that the increase in homework leads to a decrease in free play time. A decrease in free play time leads to an increase in obesity. But, you say, what about gym? Physical education is actually level over the course of about 10 years according to the data from Sturm1. There are a myriad of factors to take into account and the Sturm article outlines carefully. It is also a large one and what I believe to be one of four main culprits in the fight for our children and their childhood. First, we must look at how children spend their time. Then, we can extrapolate the differences between how they spent their time pre obesity trend and how they spend their time now. And hopefully, figure out how we can diet and exercise ourselves out of this mess.

What we being to ascertain by looking at the data is that in the overall sedentary activities have significantly declined. In the Sturm article when looking at the changes in time(minutes per week) spent on activities between 1981 and 1997 by U.S children aged three to 12 years schooling, day care, studying, reading and art activity have all increased most prominently while personal care, organized sports/outdoors activities and shopping have gone up marginally. But, as we hypothesized earlier, unorganized playing, unorganized leisure(e.g., conversations, church and visiting) and television time has gone down considerably. What does this mean in the view of the overall data? Namely, that organized sports amongst children are great and fun and educational but that activity does not lead to weight loss. Rather it leads to a more sedentary lifestyle in the overall because it creates a vacuum of time for sports and a vacuum of time for other more sedentary activities. (Figure 2)

1 In part 2 of Sturm's analysis we see that gym participation has been reasonably level over the course of 10 years from 1991 2001. Although the survey conducted by the (CDC) is a relatively short time span I find it hard to believe that we can necessarily blame gym on this. Quite frankly, a period of gym twice or three times a week does not a fit child make.

But, it doesn't end there. According to Hofferth and Sandberg2 The data also suggests that playtime actually increased amongst certain age groups although it declines overall. I can only take that to mean that more time is spent playing sedentary sorts of activities like video games or computer games. (Figure 3)

The current data suggests that the problem is two fold. In a more technologically sophisticated world children are being attracted to those mediums as a means of entertainment. This represents a necessary shift in the way that we perceive childhood. How would your or my life had been different if we had grown up with iPads or iPhones? There is now more computing power in our cell phones than there was in our entire computers during the nineties. It seems only logical that this shift should take place as well. We now have more technologically demanding jobs and a basic amount of computer
2 Hofferth SL & Sandber JF offer a comprehensive look at the changes of children's activity times during the period of the continuing childhood obesity crisis.

knowledge that would have been intimate and nerdy only a decade ago is now common place.3 Indeed it is in the best interest of children to be actively involved in technology and it's intimate minute details. But, there seems to be no doubt that it is affecting the amount of time children interact with each other in the form of a stark decrease in the amount of time of de- constructed playtime and leisure conversations. It isn't enough for the technology to continue to increase if the humans that interact with that technology continue to slide into the ranks of the obese. Indeed there must be a way to do both. And, perhaps there is.

Many municipalities here in the States are considering doing away with the burden of too much homework. It has become it's own epidemic of sorts to saddle children with homework so as to meet guidelines set by the government( e.g., George Bush's No Child Left Behind and the myriad of tests that it has spawned) or to alleviate the pressures of the sheer amount of information that teachers have to be able to instruct there students on on a daily basis. From Regents exams in New York in every subject, to SAT's and finally college admissions students are on a very short leash if they are to get into a good school, graduate, get a job and be successful in life. In a Time magazine article Claudia Wallis goes on to illuminate that, Too much homework brings diminishing returns. Cooper's analysis of dozens of studies found that kids who do some homework in middle and high school score somewhat better on standardized tests, but doing more than 60 to 90 min. a night in middle school and more than 2 hr. in high school is associated with, gulp, lower scores.4 Not only does more homework seem to result in a negative effect on childhood learning and the enjoyment of education( which we sorely need right now considering the growing college educational gap between boys and girls, the US and abroad etc.) but it also seems to be having a negative effect on the waistlines of our little ones as more and more homework makes less and less room for either supervised or unsupervised physical activities.
3 In David Wessel's article in the Wall Street Journal from April 2, 2004 it was suggested that the future of the American workforce will be more technically robust as other sorts of jobs are exported all over the world to emerging markets. 4 The Time magazine article by Claudia Wallis leans a bit to the left but there's no doubt that all that homework isn't necessarily a good thing. Not only does not effect achievement in the way we thought it did but it also seems to be effecting childhood obesity.

The affects though are even more concentrated on those families which come from lower incomes. It is fairly common to assume that being from a lower income bracket has it's hidden dangers and it is of no coincidence that children from lower income brackets are, in general, more obese than students from higher income levels. Take an article printed in the Dove press in November of 2009 regarding the eating and health habits from tow communities in Michigan. The first, Ann Arbor, is a mostly upper middle class suburb while Ypsilanti is a more working class neighboring community. According to the article in Ann Arbor the median income is $46,299 and has, approximately 31 grocery stores and 156 city parks, while Ypsilanti, with a median household income of US$28,610, has approximately four grocery stores and 11 city parks. They both participate in Michigan's PHS ( Project Healthy Schools) program. In the end the data found that a larger percentage of the Ypsilanti students were obese despite both schools participating in the programs. So what can we do about this problem? There are those that are taking matters into their own hands.

In Italy, where, roughly one in three Italian children under 12 years old is overweight, Rome has decided to make an overhaul of their school lunch system. They have switched the students to the Mediterranean diet. The program is called Gaining Health they have developed a program that not only focuses on a diet filled with healthy green vegetables, fruits and lean meats but the food also has to be locally grown. The logic out there has been of a mixed bag. Mainly, they blame American style fast food and the eroding of traditional Italian eating habits that have contributed to the decline in heath amongst their minors but it is not so far off. Instinctively, we know that high fat, high cholesterol, carbohydrate and high sugar foods are bad for us. Yet, we here in America eat more of such foods than any other society in the world. While the notions are correlative not causative it goes without saying that even if the link is small it must be eliminated. What Italy and more specifically Rome is doing is putting health at the forefront of their childhood obesity problem. Now, it is far easier to accomplish such a thing

when you have a homogeneous society with a strong national cultural origins like Italy and the rest of Europe but that does not mean that something has to be done. Lives are literally at stake. According to the report from Michigan mentioned earlier overweight adolescents are 70% more likely to stay overweight as they go into adulthood. Meaning, the health problems that will arise from their obesity are set to saddle down our health care infrastructure in a way that we cannot imagine. With the baby boomer's set to engage our infrastructure in a way that we have not seen before can we really afford to add childhood obesity to that list of growing concern?

In a group study conducted by the Division de kinsiologie, Dpartement de mdecine sociale et prventive (Poulain, Major, Drapeau, Tremblay) and Centre de Recherche, Hpital Laval, Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie (Poulain, Doucet, Sris, Boulet, Maltais), Universit Laval, Qubec, Qu in Canada the data is clear. More than one billion people around the world are overweight or obese with a body mass index (BMI) of 25kg/m^2 or more. Obesity is a major cause of morbidity; for example, in the United States in 2000 it was responsible for approximately 400,000 deaths and accounted for about 7% of health care expenditures.5 They examined the effects of obesity on chronic respiratory diseases; psychophysiology and therapeutic strategies. And, as stated above in the numerous other studies I have highlighted the results are clearly on the darker side. Obesity in general leads to lower total lung capacity, higher rates of COPD and Asthma, Bronchitis, emphysema and other deadly respiratory failures. The fact of the matter is that through a shoddy diet, lack of free play exercise and the prevalence of homework, sedentary time and technology we are literally dooming our children to a life of sky rocketing medical expenditure.

Conclusively, we see that several factors are contributing to the epidemic of childhood obesity including, the rise of technology, the increase in homework and pressures of educating our children for a
5 The article has much too many authors to name just one and can be found along with the URL in the bibilography section of the paper.

changing workforce, unhealthy eating, a more sedentary lifestyle, less free play and more organized play and less human interaction. All of these go along with our changing worlds but it is no excuse for an unhealthy minor populace. How can it be that typically adults have more free time than children? How can it be that we are allowing this to grow under our very noses despite all the evidence stating it's immediate dangers. Like Italy and other nations we must take steps to improve the diets of our youngsters. Making sure that children are eating properly, at least at school, will go a great length to helping our childhood obesity problem. Also, we must unplug our kids. We must encourage them to go out and meet other children. Interact with them, form friendships and indulge in the sort of imaginative free play atmosphere that characterized so many of our own childhood experiences. It is either we do these things or we all face the consequences. In a world where we need our children to respond to extraordinary challenges like climate control, energy issues, water, food and other issues the next generation can most assuredly not afford to be unhealthy. For the good of us all.

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Poulain, Magali, Doucet Marieve, Major C. Genevieve, Drapeau Vicy, Series Frederic, Boulet Louis-

Philippe, Tremblay, Angelo and Maltais Francois The Effect Of Obesity on Chronic Respiratory Diseases: Pathophysiology and Therapeutic Strategies Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice and Policy. Nation Wide. 2006 URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1435949/?tool=pmcentrez Tuesday July 19, 2011

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Paolocci, Fulvio, Italian School Lunches Go Organic, Low-Cost, Local, Globalpost, September 8, 2010. Rome. URL: http://www.healthandwellness360.com/summaries/italys-battle-against-childhoodobesity-begins-with-low-cost-healthy-school-meals.html Tuesday July 19, 2011

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The Future of Jobs: New Ones Arise, Wage Gap Widens Outsourcing, Technology Cut Need for Rote Workers; Brainpower Is in Demand URL: http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/outsourcing/out_barbell.htm Tuesday July19, 2011

Kravolec E, Buell J. The end of homework: how homework disrupts families, overburdens children, and limits learning. Beacon Press; Boston: 2000.

Wallis, Claudia The Myth About Homework URL: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376208,00.html Tuesday July 19, 2011