Obesity in childhood. Factors Related to the Selected Community Issue

Obesity in Childhood
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Institutional Affiliation
 Obesity in Childhood
 Abstract
Childhood obesity has become a pressing issue in both developed and developing countries. According to Sahoo et al. (2015), overweight and obesity in children attracts health and psychological concerns. Children that are obese find it difficult to engage in normal physical activities. Obesity is a health condition caused by accumulation of fats in the body to the extent that the affected person is at risk of developing adverse factors associated with health. They are also affected psychologically because they think that they are the center of attention in their environmental setting. Scholars have found that children with obesity are at the highest risk of contracting diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Tutors, researchers, and parents have been concerned about the increasing cases of childhood obesity. Scholars have been specifically interested in the methods of preventing obesity and countering its causes. Different research institutions have engaged in aggressive research work to determine the gravity and cause of obesity and how it can be managed, considering that there are high chances of childhood obesity progressing into adulthood. There is, therefore, a need for stakeholders to work together in reducing prevalence of obesity in children. The stakeholders in this case include parents, teachers, and community nurses. Introduction 
Childhood Obesity
Pulgaron (2013) defines obesity as a state of excessive accumulation of fats in the body to the extent that it attracts adverse health effects. Obesity starts in childhood and progresses throughout the stages of human development (Blaine et al., 2017). Effective management and prevention strategies should focus on both those that have already been affected and those in danger of developing this disorder. According to Parikh, Masson, and Williams (2016), children with obesity are at the highest risk of contracting diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.  Two types of programs have proved effective in the management and prevention of obesity. School-based programs include engagement in physical activities and teaching children on proper diet management (Pulgaron (2013). Home-based programs are the ones that focus on modification of nutrition at home. Home-based programs also include regulation of screen-time for children and encouraging them to take part in physical fitness activities. The third approach which has been used in a limited scale is the clinical approach that involves use of drugs to reduce calories in the body. To yield positive outcomes, one would consider mixing home-based programs with school-based programs for effective outcomes. In childhood stage of development, parents play a crucial role in determining the quality of nutrition for their children. Parents are the major decision makers when it comes to nutritional and diet requirements for their children. The advantage of combatting obesity at the childhood level is that it prevents its prevalence in adulthood.
Factors Related to the Selected Community Issue
Several factors have played a role in the prevalence of obesity in children. Some of these factors start at the family level and extend to the communal level. The impact of obesity stretches across social classes. According to O’Donnell, Tharby, and Gills (2017), parents and tutors play a significant role in creating awareness on how diet impacts prevalence of obesity. Community nurses have a role to play in transforming the society. They are the ones that are better equipped with knowledge on how to transform communal understanding on the management and prevention of obesity. In the use of Head Start program that focuses on teaching and maintaining nutritional values for children from birth to the age of five years, one cannot ignore how the program implemented properly can help reduce the prevalence of obesity. 
The Head Start program starts from prenatal to postnatal and extends to five years after birth. In the prenatal stage, the foods that a mother consumes have a significant impact on the health outcomes of the child. Prenatal intervention focuses on regulating the diet-intake of the mother. It starts with focusing on foods that a mother consumes. Community social workers employed as clinical workers have a role to play in creating awareness in the food consumption for children, expectant mothers, and those that are nursing. Lactating mothers should understand foods that they should avoid if indeed they want to raise children that are not obese. Community workers in the Head Start program also play an outreach role in the society. The outreach responsibility involves identifying the population at risk and making necessary intervention to help the society. Communal intervention may be in the form of equipping parents with parental skills on nutritional values and training them on the need to avoid exposing children to foods that are rich in fats.  Social Factors
Social factors have been linked to the prevalence of obesity in the society. Poverty is the leading issue associated with obesity. According to Nakiva et al. (2013), home-based prevention of obesity in low-income households faces adverse challenges. This is attributed to the fact that sugary foods and those rich in fats cost less than quality foods. As a result, most families in low-income households are in danger of suffering obesity. Based on this understanding, the Head Start program should seek to address economic disparities and impacts of fatty foods in combatting obesity. Security issues also contribute to high obesity cases. In rural areas where there high cases of kidnapping, parents may limit the time they allow their children to spend outdoors. Additionally, poor economic development contributes to obesity cases since there are limited or no recreation activities in the environment. Schools in areas with poor economic development can also afford quality foods. Fatty foods and those rich in calories often tend to be cheaper compared to quality foods. Expectant mothers are likely to purchase and encourage their children to consume sugary foods. Additionally, enforcing Head Start programs in rural areas may prove challenging due to poor infrastructure. Clinical social nurses need to record and enroll children and expectant mothers in the program. The Role of Parents, Teachers, and Community Nurses in Combatting Obesity
Different groups play different roles in combatting obesity in childhood. Generally, parents and teachers are the ones that spend a lot of time with children. Parents, for instance, have a significant impact in determining the nutritional intake of their children. The food that an expectant mother consumes affects the overall health outcome of the child. In most cases, households without a stable source of income hardly pay attention to nutritional values of foods they consume. From the period of birth to the age of five years, children depend on their parents for guidance on nutritional values and intake. Parents need to be equipped with relevant knowledge on how their nutritional behavior impacts their children. If a parent exposes the child to sugary foods from the tender age, the child will grow up addicted to those foods. The advantage is that a parent can alter this behavior by informing the child the health effects of consuming sugary foods. This is where Head Start program readily comes in to influence and impact nutritional choices. The overall rate at which parents buy foods from restaurants has increased. Parents in middle-income households are busy and hardly find time to prepare foods at home. They would rather buy food that has already been prepared and bring it home instead of preparing food at home. The issue with this is that children grow up learning to buy foods away from home. Additionally, children can easily develop a habit of consuming sugary and fatty foods because their parents have failed in acting as role models. 
Teachers in preschool classes have a significant role of impacting the behavior and nature of nutritional modification in children. Children in preschool environment are in a stage of trust where they will treat everything they are told as an absolute truth. It is easy to instill nutritional habits in them and help them throughout their lives. 
Sedentary Lifestyle and Obesity
Sedentary lifestyle has a significant impact on the prevalence of obesity. According to Nakiya et al. (2013), obesity spreads across social classes. Even though this is a fact, households with televisions are associated with the prevalence of obesity. In houses where children spend a lot of time watching television, they hardly find time to go out and exercise. Additionally, televisions are used by advertisement network to communicate on new foods in the market. Video games in mobile devices are replacing the amount of time that children spend outside playing or engaging in physical activities. Exposure ...