The Lack of Exercise Is Killing Our Kids.
May 16th 2008 02:37
By Sam Vallance
Obesity can affect almost anyone, but generally as long as you stay fit and healthy you should be quite safe. Obesity is a disease where your Body Mass Index (BMI,-your weight is divided by your height squared), is out of proportion with the rest of your body. No one is immune to obesity and can get you at any time of your life, but recently it seems to be a particular issue with the youth today as they don’t exercise enough. Australia has one of the worst cases of childhood obesity. But it is an international problem, especially for civilized society. Obesity is largely caused due to people leading more sedentary or inactive lives with a greater reliance on ‘fast’ or convenient foods. This is because they are becoming lazy and in the world we live in everything is easy to use and doesn’t require physical effort.
Childhood Obesity affects over 25% of Australian kids, this staggering figure records that at least ¼ of Australian kids are overweight and at a current rate, these figures are rising one percent every year. If the obesity in adults has almost doubled in the last two decades how is that a positive example for our kids? With 9.3% of boys and 10.4% of kids overweight in 1995 and now over 15.3% in both nowadays this is a big problem, not to mention a 3.5% increase in obesity. There are several causes of childhood obesity, not just unlucky genes, but things such as too many fast food restaurants, too many gaming devices stoping kids from going outside to exercise and kids becoming lazy. Maybe that’s just the generation we are becoming- fat and lazy. You can be classified as obese when 25% for boys, 32% for girls, of their body weight is fat according to the Dieticians Association of Australia. It is more so for girls because of there body shape and the fat they put on during puberty. At a quarter of Australian kids over-weight, future generations of Australians kids could have a serious problem with their health. When a child gets obese they risk the chance of getting diabetes and have it for the rest of their life, there is no known cure. The consequences of diabetes can make you dependent on insulin and you are always at risk of a fit.
Child hood obesity is a national epidemic, as it affects all of Australia and probably the majority of civilized society. A art of why it concerns mainly civilized society is because we have McDonalds, KFC, Hungry Jacks and other fast food outlets where they often lack nutrition and are high in fat. New snack bars and other foods aimed at our kids are loaded in sugar and fat and parents are stilling buying the same products that could be destroying their kids best years. It’s not just their diet that affects obesity but also school canteens where 90% of the time the fat option is the cheap option and there are no parents telling them to eat healthy. Parental divorce or having two parents working full time, or even half time jobs are throwing out kids daily routines and they might become more ‘prone’ to snacking because of a late tea or something of the sort. Experts agree that the lack of Physical Education are ruining Australian kids health. There are heaps of new healthy eating programs running with schools nowadays, but it’s still a little too late.
Diet is a problem, but it is closely followed, and helped by the lack of activity occuring. In Queensland, 40% of kids do no physical activity after school hours. There are also about 50% of kids who are play sports, but not enough or training hard enough to gain health benefits. There could be a few causes to why kids aren’t participating in physical active. For some the costs are too high. At a local competition soccer team, parents had to pay $100 for joining and insurance, $50 for boots, $20 for shin pads, $30 for a mouthguard and up to $70 for team clothing. All this and she still had to pay for petrol, which amounted to $500 a year, a total of $770 per season, all for only 8 games. Some sports just cost too much for parents to handle. Another reason for the amount of inactivity could be that kids are just too lazy, they would much rather sit at home playing the latest video game than going outside and kicking a footy or riding their bikes. 1 in 4 kids watch over 4 hours of television, a direct gaining weight as it slows down the metabolism.
Having so much body fat can lead to many diseases, such as, type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases, arthritis, sleep apnoea and strokes. It is proven that type two diabetes (which is caused by obesity) is Australia’s fastest growing disease. Almost 214 people are diagnosed every single day, that’s 78,110 people each year. More than 30% of obese people suffer from a circulatory condition, which is 8% than the people in the healthy weight range and of the people in the healthy weight range, 2% have diabetes, where as 8% of overweight people have diabetes. If you are of an unhealthy weight, you are also more than twice as likely to complain of poor health. Also, sadly, the rate of suicide from taunting and bullying in children of an unhealthy weight increases by 150%. This truly saddening figure is a very disturbing one, this, of any reason should be one for kids to try to do something and watch what they are doing.
Why is this happening? There are so many fast food stores and electronic gaming companies that kids these days don’t seem to want to eat healthy or go to the park or do a sport. Back when electronic devices weren’t so common, kids could spend a whole evening playing cricket in the back yard. But obesity can be caused because you can’t exercise and you’re in a wheel chair, you’re too old, injuries or you have a mental condition. But still, a very common case is laziness. Type 2 diabetes is Australia fastest growing disease (which is caused by obesity), almost 214 people are diagnosed each day, that’s 78, 110 people per year, but the rate is still going up.
There are still 599, 259 people diagnosed with diabetes and Diabetes Australia estimated that in 2010 the will be 1,800,000 people with diabetes out of a current population of 20, 434, 176. It isn’t good news. Someone has to do something about the increasing number and get kids active. Groups like “the walking school bus” and others are being helped bring there ideas to the community by the State Governments. There are mountains of requests and suggestions arriving at Government offices and it’s only a matter of time until they do something that will really affect Australia’s population of obese and overweight kids. Like a new requirement on the amount of activity a person does in a day. This shouldn’t be as big as issue as it is, because should never have started.
Obesity can affect almost anyone, but generally as long as you stay fit and healthy you should be quite safe. Obesity is a disease where your Body Mass Index (BMI,-your weight is divided by your height squared), is out of proportion with the rest of your body. No one is immune to obesity and can get you at any time of your life, but recently it seems to be a particular issue with the youth today as they don’t exercise enough. Australia has one of the worst cases of childhood obesity. But it is an international problem, especially for civilized society. Obesity is largely caused due to people leading more sedentary or inactive lives with a greater reliance on ‘fast’ or convenient foods. This is because they are becoming lazy and in the world we live in everything is easy to use and doesn’t require physical effort.
Childhood Obesity affects over 25% of Australian kids, this staggering figure records that at least ¼ of Australian kids are overweight and at a current rate, these figures are rising one percent every year. If the obesity in adults has almost doubled in the last two decades how is that a positive example for our kids? With 9.3% of boys and 10.4% of kids overweight in 1995 and now over 15.3% in both nowadays this is a big problem, not to mention a 3.5% increase in obesity. There are several causes of childhood obesity, not just unlucky genes, but things such as too many fast food restaurants, too many gaming devices stoping kids from going outside to exercise and kids becoming lazy. Maybe that’s just the generation we are becoming- fat and lazy. You can be classified as obese when 25% for boys, 32% for girls, of their body weight is fat according to the Dieticians Association of Australia. It is more so for girls because of there body shape and the fat they put on during puberty. At a quarter of Australian kids over-weight, future generations of Australians kids could have a serious problem with their health. When a child gets obese they risk the chance of getting diabetes and have it for the rest of their life, there is no known cure. The consequences of diabetes can make you dependent on insulin and you are always at risk of a fit.
Child hood obesity is a national epidemic, as it affects all of Australia and probably the majority of civilized society. A art of why it concerns mainly civilized society is because we have McDonalds, KFC, Hungry Jacks and other fast food outlets where they often lack nutrition and are high in fat. New snack bars and other foods aimed at our kids are loaded in sugar and fat and parents are stilling buying the same products that could be destroying their kids best years. It’s not just their diet that affects obesity but also school canteens where 90% of the time the fat option is the cheap option and there are no parents telling them to eat healthy. Parental divorce or having two parents working full time, or even half time jobs are throwing out kids daily routines and they might become more ‘prone’ to snacking because of a late tea or something of the sort. Experts agree that the lack of Physical Education are ruining Australian kids health. There are heaps of new healthy eating programs running with schools nowadays, but it’s still a little too late.
Diet is a problem, but it is closely followed, and helped by the lack of activity occuring. In Queensland, 40% of kids do no physical activity after school hours. There are also about 50% of kids who are play sports, but not enough or training hard enough to gain health benefits. There could be a few causes to why kids aren’t participating in physical active. For some the costs are too high. At a local competition soccer team, parents had to pay $100 for joining and insurance, $50 for boots, $20 for shin pads, $30 for a mouthguard and up to $70 for team clothing. All this and she still had to pay for petrol, which amounted to $500 a year, a total of $770 per season, all for only 8 games. Some sports just cost too much for parents to handle. Another reason for the amount of inactivity could be that kids are just too lazy, they would much rather sit at home playing the latest video game than going outside and kicking a footy or riding their bikes. 1 in 4 kids watch over 4 hours of television, a direct gaining weight as it slows down the metabolism.
Having so much body fat can lead to many diseases, such as, type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases, arthritis, sleep apnoea and strokes. It is proven that type two diabetes (which is caused by obesity) is Australia’s fastest growing disease. Almost 214 people are diagnosed every single day, that’s 78,110 people each year. More than 30% of obese people suffer from a circulatory condition, which is 8% than the people in the healthy weight range and of the people in the healthy weight range, 2% have diabetes, where as 8% of overweight people have diabetes. If you are of an unhealthy weight, you are also more than twice as likely to complain of poor health. Also, sadly, the rate of suicide from taunting and bullying in children of an unhealthy weight increases by 150%. This truly saddening figure is a very disturbing one, this, of any reason should be one for kids to try to do something and watch what they are doing.
Why is this happening? There are so many fast food stores and electronic gaming companies that kids these days don’t seem to want to eat healthy or go to the park or do a sport. Back when electronic devices weren’t so common, kids could spend a whole evening playing cricket in the back yard. But obesity can be caused because you can’t exercise and you’re in a wheel chair, you’re too old, injuries or you have a mental condition. But still, a very common case is laziness. Type 2 diabetes is Australia fastest growing disease (which is caused by obesity), almost 214 people are diagnosed each day, that’s 78, 110 people per year, but the rate is still going up.
There are still 599, 259 people diagnosed with diabetes and Diabetes Australia estimated that in 2010 the will be 1,800,000 people with diabetes out of a current population of 20, 434, 176. It isn’t good news. Someone has to do something about the increasing number and get kids active. Groups like “the walking school bus” and others are being helped bring there ideas to the community by the State Governments. There are mountains of requests and suggestions arriving at Government offices and it’s only a matter of time until they do something that will really affect Australia’s population of obese and overweight kids. Like a new requirement on the amount of activity a person does in a day. This shouldn’t be as big as issue as it is, because should never have started.
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i liked the facts and statistics
however,
what you could improve on is where you got these statistics from
= D