Self-Esteem and Childhood Obesity

In the United States, childhood obesity has long since developed into a severe health issue among kids. Since the 1970s, the proportion of kids who are obese has more than tripled. Children in the United States who are significantly obese—about 15% of them—are at danger of developing serious health issues. In addition to health issues, they deal with social and psychological effects like sadness and low self-esteem. Type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep issues, and high cholesterol are among health dangers that diabetic youngsters are prone to. Obese children experience emotional issues that endure throughout adulthood. Emotional problems develop in obese children because of constant teasing or bullying by other kids. When their esteemed is lowered, it leads to depression which can lead to some of these obese children being suicidal. Environmental factors, cultural environment, and lifestyle preferences have contributed to the increase in obesity cases in children. Regardless of age, gender or race obesity is a terrible stigmatizing condition.

The cause of childhood obesity is still a subjected that is being debated as most researchers who point out that the cause is the socioeconomic factors. On the other side, the advocacy groups argue that mass media is the root of this epidemic as they market junk food to children (Dawes 2014). Food makers claim that the lack of physical activity and parent influence has resulted in many children being obese. Obesity among children has spread across the lines of gender, race, and socioeconomic status but African American, Native American, and Hispanic children have the highest prevalence. The prevalence of obesity is significantly high among African American females and Mexican American males. Most of the obese children avoid participating in sports & other school activities and record lower social, education, and emotional functioning. Societal factors as well play a role in childhood obesity in children. A lot of the urban neighborhoods lack outdoor stands, supermarkets, and healthy store. Alternatively, they have fast food outlets which make it difficult for residents to have access to fresh and cheap produce. Open spaces for physical activity are few in the Inner city neighborhoods, and the rates violence are high making parents to keep their children indoors where there is only video games, televisions, and computers as entertainment. High school student’s daily participation in physical education has declined by 30 percent in the past decade (Dawes 2014). Because of this, it has limited the physical activity during and after school thus contributing significantly to obesity in children. But even if the physical activity were observed strictly, it still would not be enough to put a stop to obesity in children. Instead, the lifestyles of children should be changed. Schools also contribute to unhealthy lifestyles in students as they provide a lot of fast foods. Even the diet at home should be checked as it might be a significant contributor to obesity in children as some parents because of lack of time to make healthy meals choose to get fast foods and sugary drinks. These diets that are low in fiber, high in fat and energy dense contribute to this epidemic.

Childhood obesity increases the chances of developing multiple acute and chronic medical problems which most of the time persist into adulthood and affect the quality of life. Obese children stand a chance of suffering from orthopedic complications like the abnormal growth of the bone, degenerative disease, and pain. Health related issues that are concerned obesity have been linked to reduced life expectancy. An estimated 9 million children who are overweight and 4.5 million who are obese have a high risk of having type 2 diabetes mellitus, heart disease, asthma, cancer, elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic illnesses, stroke, and other pulmonary diseases (Dawes 2014).

The Effects of Childhood Obesity on Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a very crucial aspect of the health and behavior of developing children. The activity engagement, goal direction, social adjustment, self-confidence, and the presence of anxiety are all part of a child’s functioning and development that are usually influenced by their self-esteem. Low self-esteem has always been associated with depression and suicidal behaviors. Studies have also shown a close relation of self-esteem to psychological difficulties and personal problems such as academic failure, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, loneliness, and criminal behavior (Paxton 2013). High self-esteem has always been associated feelings of optimism, a mood of cheerfulness, and relatively high energy while low self-esteem has been associated with feelings of doubt about one’s worth and acceptability. After the onset of these feelings, a person will have low energy and lack motivation which results in a low effort. Individuals who have low self-esteem tend to believe that any success that they have is because of lack and not because of the own abilities, unlike an individual who has high self-esteem they will attribute their success to their skills and qualities. Self-esteem does not only affect behavior, but it also has an influence on an individual’s understanding of how the world acts and where they fit into it.

A persons’ understanding and knowledge of who they are mainly are as a result of the feedback that they get from others. People are always sensitive and selective of the people they get feedback from most of the time a person will choose to receive feedback from individuals who they know will tell them what they want to hear and avoid those who give them the opposite of what they want. Every person in life at some point will have to experience some negative feedback from their social environment so as to develop appropriate coping mechanisms that are crucial to the maintenance of self-esteem. Some individuals try to avoid negative feedback by pretending to be what they believe is acceptable to others. Self-esteem, most of the time, is lowered by criticism, rejection, failure, and other events that have negative consequences. At times even the possibility of being rejected can make a person have low self-esteem. It is believed that a person with high self-esteem possesses desirable social characteristics like physical attractiveness, personal likeability, and competence.

Obesity is a very undesirable state of existence for a child, and its, even more, worse for an adolescent who even the smallest degree of overweight may turn into a damaging barrier as the society we live in is obsessed with slim bodies. Childhood obesity not only has a long-term health implication it may also pose an adverse effect towards a child’s psychological, social, and motivational well-being. The world we live in is filled stereotypical views that are based on what is beautiful is good this obsession with appearance is something that has become a norm for this day and age. With the advancement in technology, especially the media it has increased the level of concerns individuals have with their appearance. The media has ingrained an extremely rigid and austere gauge of beauty into the cultural and personal standards. Magazines, televisions, and billboards only give people the picture of beautiful people and making individuals believe that exceptionally good looks are real, attainable, and healthy. Many of the persons who are considered to be attractive have advantages over others. For instance, attractive children usually are more popular with classmates and teachers even when it comes to interviews attractive people are more likely to get a job and to receive higher salaries.

As children develop, they will start to construct a concept and an identity of themselves. They will become aware of the negative social stigma that is associated with being obese at an early age. An individual who is considered to be overweight is associated with various negative characteristics (Paxton 2013). Fat people, most of the times are viewed as being unattractive, aesthetically displeasing, emotionally & morally impaired, and being discontent with who they are. Fat people usually devalue their identity socially. When children who are obese become aware of other people’s negative views on obesity, it diminishes their self-esteem. Since others devalue obese children, they usually end up devaluing themselves. These kids may also devalue themselves because they have fallen short of the internalized social standards for the weight and appearance that is acceptable. Furthermore, obese people usually have the expectancy that they will be judged based on their weight which often results in their behavior being affected leading to the production of negative social interactions.

Obese children often endure negative attention that is in the form of teasing, rejection, and harsh treatment which contributes to the reduction of their self-esteem. A study found that 26 percent of teenagers who got teased at school and home confessed to having contemplated suicide while 9 percent had attempted to take their lives (Paxton 2013). As a result of peer taunting, obese children usually show elevated levels sadness, nervousness, and loneliness.

Economic Costs of Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity has been estimated to cost $14 million each year in direct medical spending. With the rising obesity levels, direct medical spending is set to increase because of diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, asthma, arthritis, coronary heart disease, and hypercholesterolemia. The focus is shifting towards health care away from business investments in other industries that could boost the economy, and this is because obesity-related illnesses are expensive to treat (Warren, 2013). The current growth of obese children implies that there will be future direct costs given that these kids may become obese adults. Obesity also has a relation to absenteeism from school and work because of health issues. Because of this absenteeism from school, many of the obese children will end up recording poor academic performances. Apart from medical spending obesity may affect transportation costs as overweight people keep increasing in America, more fuel, and potentially larger vehicles are needed to transport the same number of commuters and travelers each year. Chronically, overweight people are 50 percent more likely to be unemployed and single. This could be as a result of discrimination when they were children who ended up killing their self-esteem together with their aspirations (Warren, 2013)

Psychological effects of childhood obesity

With all the bullying that is going on in an overweight child’s life, they might end up feeling as if they do not belong or fit anywhere and feel as if they are different and an outcast. Children who are obese often drift away from others they become lonely, and this becomes part of their lives, and with time they become sad and clinically depressed. When the pain of being bullied and being lonely becomes too much, most overweight children seek emotional comfort in food and most of the time these are high-calorie foods.

Cultural Effects of Childhood Obesity

Culture is usually learned and distributed among a group and becomes a shared understanding that changes over time as they are shaped by the experiences of members of a group. Children learn from what they see around them. Most eating behaviors start from homes so if it is the norm to have junk food and over eat children pick up these attributes. The foods that are served at home influence the choice of foods children will adopt. Families and the society as a whole should cultures and habits where they incorporate physical activities so as to control their children. The communities in which children live in play a significant role in what they will become. Socio-cultural factors also affect obesity a lot. The society we live in believes that food is like a reward, or should be a part of gathering. These uses of food encourage the development of unhealthy eating habits and increase the risk of obesity.

Advocacy and Regulation

Childhood obesity can significantly impact children’s physical health, social, and emotional well-being, and self-esteem. With these adverse effects in mind, many strategies have been developed so as to control the problem of childhood obesity. For example in June 2007 recommendations for the assessment and treatment of obese and overweight children was issued by the Expert Committee on the Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment of Child and Adolescent Overweight and Obesity (Koplan, 2012). The Agriculture Department of the United States makes approval of school meals but do not regulate the nutritional contents of other high-calorie foods and snacks. The American Academy of Pediatricians is for limiting foods with high calories for students and restricting of advertisements on televisions and schools.

Prevention of Childhood Obesity

Social Media

Parents, media, and schools are the main three areas of what can affect childhood obesity. Parents are the first and probably the most influential toward obesity. Some children may not have a parent so when referring to parent guardian can be included. Parents control the child’s diet, engages the child in exercises by also getting involved. There is one aspect that may or may not be controlled. Media can be everywhere, especially if a child is engaged in a lot of television. However, such channels can be banned by parents. The media has been known to be a strategic advertiser to the kid’s mind. It is, therefore, the parent’s responsibilities to make sure the child is engaged in house chores activities so as to prevent the child from being idle.

Physical Activities

Through physical activities, as reviewed by Stone et.al 2013, significant results have been seen in the obese children. In the USA, an interdisciplinary program for activities was created so as to balance the diet of the children as well as engaging them in school activities. The schools were encouraged to change their physical activities policies by increasing of more sports participations. Such activities included things like cycling, walking and by use of the public transport (Koplan, 2012). The school’s cafeteria is also supposed to involve a healthy and balanced meal. Sometimes the meal is not as healthy as it is meant to be. Also, children like to trade food for other food so the children can be presented with junk food without the parent’s discretion. Parents should consider packing healthy food for this matter. All these factors are crucial to either set a child up to live a healthy life or bring a child that is obese back into a healthy life.

Combined effort

Ideally, recent research has proved that both parents and teachers should have a combined effort of encouraging free play rather than focusing reducing sedentary behaviors. It is also found to be of no use especially when one focuses on reducing food to an obese child. The efforts that should be played by the school is by writing the child weight problem on the report card. It was discovered that when the parent receives this news, they take further action at home by observing the behavioral movement of the kids. This was seen to be very effective because, upon the child returning to school, the parent is left aware of the weight. The method also assists in monitoring where the child tends to gain weight more.

Balancing Calories

One major aspect of weight gain comes from food with high calories. Parents should make sure that they learn the importance of healthy living. By doing so, these kids encouraged to take plenty of fruits, whole grained products, and vegetables. When it comes to dairy products, these kids should be given non-fat or low-fat milk products (Koplan, 2012). The parents should also limit the consumption of sugary food by also encouraging them to drink plenty of water. This recipe is known to have a tremendous impact when it comes to reducing the weight. Children also learn the benefits of healthy living thus growing up practicing the same. When these kids also grow, they will carry these virtues which at a later date will be seen quite educational to their younger brothers and sisters.

Conclusion

Obesity and overweight are both chronic disorders that have a significant impact on the psychological and physical part of a child. Obese children are more likely to have depression, digestive diseases and cardiovascular. It is, therefore, advisable to involve the children in physical activities as well as checking their diet. Apparently, there are many ways which can be used to prevent childhood obesity. A few potential plans like diet and physical activities set a secure foundation for prevention. Through these strategies and the effort of both the parents and teachers, then the rate of child obesity will reduce drastically. The community in this matter also plays a vital role especially when it comes to obesity. It is the duty of the community to teach children how to live healthy lives. They will do this by introducing school community projects which engage children. When school closes, the societies in exceptional educational programs is also seen to impact the life of these kids. When every member focuses on these steps, then childhood obesity will eventually go down, and the community as a whole will have healthy lives.

References

Dawes, L. (2014). Childhood Obesity in America. Harvard University Press.

Koplan, J. (2012). Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance. National Academies Press.

Paxton, H. L. (2013). The Effects of Childhood Obesity on Self-esteem. Marshall University Libraries.

Warren, J. (2013). Always the Fat Kid: The Truth About the Enduring Effects of Childhood Obesity. St. Martin’s Press.