The Future, Much Bigger But Much Shorter: Childhood Obesity
If our youth is our future then shouldn't we do all we can to insure our future outlives us? If this is true then why does today’s generation have a projected shorter life expectancy than their parents? In a day and age where society spends countless dollars and hours trying to prevent some of the most difficult and life threatening diseases, we are overlooking one of the most
dangerous and easiest to fix. Childrens lifestyle today and the abundance of new and addicting technology is the reason childhood obesity is growing like wild fire. Childhood obesity is a preventable disease that has grown dangerously out of control.
Technology over usage is a prime example of why childhood obesity is spiraling out of control.This first photo (right) shows us really just how much children are spending on technology each day . “7.5 hours in front of a screen per day” to put that in perspective that is nearly a third of the day in front of a screen. The average child sleeps for about eight hours a night which means roughly half of the entire time they are awake they using technology. This shows just how intertwined youth have become with technology. With the never ending abundance of improving technology kids today have no choice but to be consumed by all it. We have chosen to surround our youth with all this technology but have not ensured it is being used properly. “Sitting-Physical inactivity-Childhood obesity” this photo also explains what the outcome of all this screen time leads to. Youth needs guidance and we have abandoned them when it comes making choices regarding their health. Which can be solved, if today's youth had supervision when it came to technology usage it could drastically reduce the amount of screen time and ensure kids are being active which would decrease. 
As the last photo explained how technology is being abused this photo (left) shows the impact technology has on the body. The photo shows a dangerously oversized person with a shirt that reads “TECH-BESITY”. The size of the individual and the text on his t-shirt shows the direct link between technology and obesity. Along with the main focal being the size of the person, The text itself is also strong evidence of the direct link of technology and the individual. The two words “Obesity” and “Technology” are hyphenated to Combine one word which symbolises how closely related technology is with obesity. The size of the letter also shows us the connection between the two. Obese people are larger than others and by the letter being the size they are really emphasizes the message the phrase is relaying. Once again the abuse of technology is very much so preventable. If the word “tech” was removed from the person’s shirt than than the phrase falls apart. If this person’s shirt symbolized his life than if technology was removed from his life than like the text on his shirt there would be no obesity. Showing that the use of technology leads to childhood obesity and is preventable.
Another contributor to childhood obesity which is also preventable is the lifestyle of today’s youth. The first aspect of today’s youth’s lifestyle that is contributing to early obesity is their diet.
The photo shown here (left) gives us a stat that states “ fifty percent of advertising aimed at children promotes food and beverage” This is a massive exposure to food children are being exposed. Youth today are developing an unhealthy relationship to food. Half of the media kids are exposed to is food related and majority of it is unhealthy food and drink. For example if you ever walk down the cereal aisle of the grocery store it seems almost endless the amount of sugary and blatantly unhealthy cereal with kid friendly logos and colours. So to make things even worse the constant diet choices being imposed on today’s youth is very rarely the right diet choices. This is very resolvable, we can control what kind of media kids are exposed to and how much of it. Whether it be on a small scale, a parent screening what their kids are seeing or watching. Or on a larger scale, the advertising companies and the food production companies simply reducing the amount of advertising targeted at kids or altering it so it influences kids to make healthy diet choices. For those reasons diet is a contributing factor to childhood obesity and a preventable one.
In addition to diet, the overall lifestyle of today's youth is contributing to obesity as show in this photo
(right). This photo depicts what many kids today are all too familiar with. The photo shows a child slouched into a chair watching television surrounded by an abundance of unhealthy food. Even though this is an illustration it depicts a very real image of our youth today. Kids have grown extremely lazy and adding unhealthy food on top of laziness results in childhood obesity. There is proof that lifestyle changes are possible because when our parents were kids physical activity and being outside and playing was just the norm. The childhood obesity rate when our parents were kids was statistically much lower which shows the connection between the lifestyle our parents had as kids and the low childhood obesity rate. So a change in lifestyle is a possible solution which would prevent the increase in childhood obesity which is evident in our parents generation.
In conclusion, two contributing factors are allowing childhood obesity to slip out of our control when in reality childhood obesity is a preventable disease that has grown dangerously outta control.
Works Cited
Charitysub. “Childhood obesity.” Chairtysub.org. N.p., Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. <https://www.charitysub.org/childhood-obesity/>.
Tyree, Danny. “Childhood obesity and you.” http://www.cagle.com/2012/01/childhood-obesity-george-orwell-and-you/. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Drew-fuller.com, Drew Fuller. “Childhood obesity Infographic.” Drew-fuller.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. <http://www.drew-fuller.com/childhood-obesity-infographic.html>.
Scott, Willie. "Technology Leads to Obesity." Technology Leads to Obesity. 12 May 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. <http://www.newsinabox.net/1414/technology-leads-to-obesity.html>.
Focusing specifically on your first image, I strongly agree with it's relation to the overall concept of your topic as it correlates directly with the result of the problem within your other images. It is unbelievable to know that on average our youth spends 1/3 of their day on technology, which is also 1/2 of the time they spend awake during the day. Furthermore within your other images, and more specifically the second and third, they demonstrate the drastic affect of that screen time many children average which results in the dire and harsh results caused not only to their bodies, but to their minds. Similar to what you suggested in your second image, I think it also important to highlight the fact that this issue is not entirely the fault of our youth, but a result of the carelessness of our society. Many adults are becoming obsessed with their technology and make more and more unhealthy decisions, and their habits directly correlate onto the lives and habits of our youth. Not only does society root as the issue, but recognize the susceptibility of our youth and provoke the issue. All in all this issue serves no secret and is clearly a drastic and noticeable issue amongst a large portion of our youth, and so far the issue proves to only worsen and be prompted, rather than have efforts put towards fixing the issue and creating a positive future for our youth.
ReplyDeleteI see what you are saying and I agree. I do think the youth are not to blame. It really does start with the parents children do not know better they do as they see others do and if they see their parents with bad eating habit and and poor lifestyles they will follow. We can not blame the children for having no guidance. I agree with the point you made I now see I could have interpreted Those images in different ways. Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your use of images that incorporated factual evidence. This bolded your statement of how intertwined technology and obesity are because it gave me as the reader a number to hold onto in my mind while I read the rest of your paragraph. I also liked how in your third paragraph you talk about the lifestyles of children and their parents in contrast. You compared the positive habits of parents in their youth with children today being derailed from a healthy life because of the lifestyle they live is tainted from things like T.V.
ReplyDeleteGreat job!!:) Be proud of yourself
I liked how you talked about technology and diet, the two really do go hand in hand. As a society we approve to shy away from highlighting lack of physical fitness, or improper eating habits for fear of offending individuals. Instead our "blind-eyed" tolerance makes those issues acceptable.
ReplyDelete