Childhood Obesity in the State of Indiana Health Research (Essay Sample)

Childhood Obesity
Nursing
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Childhood Obesity in the State of Indiana
The Body Mass Index defines the ratio of body mass in kilograms to the height of an individual in square meters, expressed in kg/m2. It is a measure of how healthy someone is considered to be by stating whether they are underweight, normal, overweight or obese. If one is underweight, their body weight is lower than what is healthy for an individual with their height. On the other hand, overweight and obese describe the body weights above the weights considered healthy for individuals at that height. It should be noted that while BMI can be used to screen, it cannot be used to diagnose whether one is healthy or not and is also not used to determine how fat one is. A BMI ratio of 25.0 to 29.9 is considered overweight while a BMI of 30.0 and above is considered obese. On the other hand, a BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight for the individual concerned.
Many factors are accountable for the current increase in obesity among citizens of the United States, whose obese individuals have more than doubled in the past two decades. The major factors are: the busy lifestyles of the American people which leaves them with little time for exercise and increases their stress levels in the long run; there is now easy and increased access to high calorie, cheap food with a lot of sugar and fats which add weight to their consumers. The environment we currently live in also doesn’t allow enough room for exercises like running, jogging or cycling because we are never sure of our own safety as we do so, we are thus left with very few options of which exercises to do which in turn increases our risk of getting overweight or obese.
Overweight and obesity among children is also on the rise and can be attributed to not being fed on mother’s milk during infancy, consumption of a lot of soda, high energy dense foods which give the body many calories, a lot of viewing of Television sets by the kids which reduces the resting metabolic rate, is associated with reduced physical activity, and they still get to see a lot of marketing of high energy foods in TV adverts which encourages them to consume these foods. Other factors causing childhood obesity and which may prove more difficult to do away with may include genetic predispositions, medical conditions on which little can be done, little sleep at night, and the income status and education level of parents (Idemudia 2011, p. 167-170)
In the state of Indiana, childhood obesity is a matter of grave concern since it has been shown that obesity has been the major cause of low self esteem and depression among growing children, asthma and obstructive sleep apnea, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, high levels of insulin in their blood or insulin resistance in some cases, glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes mellitus has also been reported to be on the rise in recent times. If left unattended to, the kids may grow into obese adults with several more serious problems like heart diseases which will be more difficult to manage and may result into increased cases of mortality. According to the Indiana State Department of Health (2011, p. 7), the leading causes of death (cancer, stroke and heart disease) in 2009 were all related to obesity, hence the need to stem the problem in childhood before it becomes serious in adulthood.
Indiana is ranked 21st in the overall prevalence of obesity with 29.9% of the children regarded to be overweight or obese. This has however fallen since the year 2003 which is a good statistic. According to 2008 data, 31.1% of children from low income families aged 2-5 years of age were overweight or obese. On the other hand, the percentage of children aged between 10 and 17 years of age in Indiana was 29.9% compared to the country’s 31.6% overall. It should be noted that the state’s rank improved from 41st in 2003 to 21st in 2008.
Though not doing very well, the State of Indiana favorably compares with other states and can be said to be having average figures in this context, which may be misleading all in all. As at 2011, the percentage of overweight children in Indiana was 17.1%, compared to 10.5% which had the lowest percentage of all the states and North Dakota’s 20.4% which had the biggest numbers. On the other hand, its proportion of obese children stood at 14.3% against 9.9% of the State of Oregon which had the lowest and the State of Mississippi that had the highest proportion of obese children at 21.7%.
In 2008, the state was among 22 that were awarded grants to encourage nutrition and physical activity. The Indiana State Department of Health, ISDH founded the Indiana Healthy Weight Initiative, IHWI as a result which in turn formed a task force to form a strategic plan to stem out the problem of obesity in the state. ISDH together with the task force launched the Comprehensive Nutrition and Physical Activity Plan 2010-2020 which in turn set out objectives, goals and strategies aimed at decreasing obesity and enhancing outcomes in the priority target areas of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention which were: maximize the consumption of vegetables and fruits, reduce the intake of high energy dense foods, decrease the time kids spend in viewing television, reduce consumption of beverages sweetened by sugar, and expand the initiation, period and exclusiveness of breastfeeding (United States, 2007, n.p)
The Health Initiative also put in place long-term goals and targets for improvement by the year 2020 are outlined herein: for breast feeding, to raise the percentage of women who breastfed their kids from 71% to 75%, raise the proportion of those who exclusively breastfeed their babies at the age of three months to 40% from 29% and at 6 months to 50% from 38% by 2020 and lastly at 12 months to 25% from 17% by 2020.
For the y...