Submitted by: Submitted by hayleyoamack
Views: 10
Words: 1304
Pages: 6
Category: People
Date Submitted: 07/08/2015 12:50 PM
Childhood Obesity
"Grossly obese" is a phrase that should never sit alongside the description "8-month-old." However, that is indeed the case in Colombia where a baby has been "rescued" from his family by a charity—at his own mother's request. Santiago Mendoza weighs a staggering 44 pounds, roughly equivalent to the weight of a 6-year-old. After his mother found herself unable to carry him anymore, she contacted the Chubby Hearts Foundation (Gorditos de Corazon). Santiago’s mother shoulders much of the blame for his weight, and admitted that "he was born with an anxiety, so if he cried I just fed him." (“Seamons”)
“Ten per cent of the world’s school-aged children are estimated to be carrying excess body fat, with an increased risk for developing chronic disease. Of these over- weight children, a quarter of them are considered obese, with a significant likelihood of some having multiple risk factors for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and a variety of other co-morbidities before or during early adulthood.” (“Lobstein”)
Everywhere you go there’s a little fat kid eating something he shouldn’t be eating. His mom is frustrated and tired of fighting so she gives into his every whim. She didn’t start out teaching her child how to eat properly, and odds are she is over weight herself without the same education of proper eating.
Two looming issues in our society regarding obesity are that half of parents with an overweight or obese child think their kid is slimmer than they actually are, and most overweight kids don’t think they are overweight. “In 69 studies of more than 15,000 children, researchers found many parents with an overweight child thought their son or daughter was at a healthy weight or below. Others with an obese kid thought the child was normal or just a bit heavy.” (“Reuters”).
New data from a survey, preformed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shows that “about 81% of overweight boys and 71% of overweight girls believe...