In today’s society huge corporations pray on the pockets of overweight people and make millions of dollars. It is estimated that Americans alone spend 80-100 billion dollars on weight-loss tactics annually. However, about one-third of the America’s population is extremely over-weight and out of that one out of seven children ages 6-17 is considered obese.

Obesity in teens has also sky rocketed over the last century. According to the health department’s Healthy People 2000 standards, one out of five teenagers is overweight and the rates are much higher among ethnic and racial minorities and lowest income group.

America is now facing a huge epidemic of adolescent obesity. The National Commission on the Role of School and Community in Improving Adolescent Health is concerned about this. In 1990, the Commission warned: “ For the first time in history of the country, young people a

Researches have found that inactivity is most likely to blame. Weight control involves balancing food intake with the energy burned in everyday activities. Although diet is a factor, low levels of physical activity may play a greater role in childhood obesity than eating lots of high-calorie food. Why are children today less active? Many blame increased television viewing. Watching TV doesn't require much energy and often is accompanied by snacking on high-calorie foods.

Before answering this question it is important to know what the difference is between being over weight and being obese. It is also important to know the health risk involved in being obese. Overweight and obesity are two different things. A person who is overweight has excess amount of body weight that includes muscle, fat, bone, and water. Obesity is the excess accumulation of body fat. A person can be overweight and not obese. For example a body builder who has a lot of muscle is not considered to be obese. However most people that are overweight are also obese. Obesity is most often defined as being 20% or more over ideal body weight. Obesity is considered a serious disease and has been linked to shortened life expectancy. Obesity is known to cause many health risks such as Hypertension, Cancer, and premature death. Overweight young people (20-45) have a six times higher incidence of hypertension than do peers who are normal weight. Hypertension is known to cause!

Most nutritionists will say that adolescent obesity is due to lack of parental guidance and nothing else. Parents should teach their children proper eating habits so that they won’t run across problems in the future (Tomlin 758). However, scientists are still debating on what the really causes obesity. Perhaps the simplest answer would be that children are not as active as they were centuries ago. Another answer is eating foods high in fat food or containing many too calories; certainly this is a factor for many of America’s youth today. Yet fat consumption has dropped from 36 to 34 percent of total calories in the last dec

Some topics in this essay:
Hypertension Cancer, Adolescent Health, Institutes Health, Surgeon General's, Adolescent Obesity, Heart Association, Trowbridge Childhood, , Healthy People, Watching TV, adolescent obesity, childhood obesity, overweight obese, health threat, normal weight, obese obesity, children active, adoptive parents, child overweight, children proper,