Childhood Obesity: Who's to Blame

Julio Rodriguez

ID: 010313301

Topic Statement, Abstracts, and Bibliography

Topic Statement:

In the United States, Childhood obesity has become an ever growing concern. With so many people quick to point the finger at the fast food industry as the culprit, they fail to realize that such an industry does not hold all the blame. Rather than accuse large corporations like McDonalds, the real solution is, what parents can do to lessen this growing issue. Fast-food will always be around therefore the only way to reduce this epidemic is to promote healthy eating and exercise not only at home but at school as well.

The reason why I am writing about this topic is because as a child who was once overweight I truly feel that the topic of childhood obesity is a constantly growing concern. I believe that many parents do not pay enough attention to their child’s regular exercise or eating habits. If parents and schools cooperated a little more instead of blaming fast food, then perhaps the increasing rate of childhood obesity may take a plummet for once. I will write an abstract for the second and third references on the bibliography sheet.

Abstract #1:

The prevalence of childhood obesity in America has not gone unnoticed. The percentage of obese children aged 6 to 11 more than doubled in the past two decades, increasing from 6.5% in 1980 to 17.0% in 2006. Studies are becoming more common such as the one in this article. In the article, “Childhood Obesity and Schools: Evidence From the National Survey of Children’s Health”, a nonlinear regression method study was conducted to find out if there was a relationship or correlation between the following factors. They wanted to determine if there was a link between childhood obesity and all of these factors: school type, National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) eligibility, membership in sports clubs and other socio-demographic, and household factors. They would examine how socioeconomic,...