Comments on: Is Being Obese Your Own Fault or is Society to Blame? http://www.reportbuyer.com/blog/is-being-obese-your-own-fault-or-is-society-to-blame/ Sharing intelligence Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:26:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Matthew Adams http://www.reportbuyer.com/blog/is-being-obese-your-own-fault-or-is-society-to-blame/#comment-114231 Matthew Adams Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:54:16 +0000 http://www.reportbuyer.com/blog/is-being-obese-your-own-fault-or-is-society-to-blame/#comment-114231 Consumption of food though is of course an issue. In Europe, children consume more than the population average in many energy-dense, indulgence food and drink categories. European kids consume 17% more than the population average in confectionery (9.8% UK), 23% in Savoury Snacks (20.4% UK), almost 26% in Ice Cream (27.5% UK), and 33% in fizzy drinks (31.4% UK). Furthermore, a reliance on packaged food to provide balanced nutrition has led to many children accessing a diet that is geared too much towards convenience rather than balanced nourishment. In the western world children are now suffering because their diet is not balanced and is too rich in calories. Obesogenic environments and lifestyles contribute to growing childhood obesity Much of the problem of childhood obesity is that the conditions for its prevalence are so rife, making a healthy weight more difficult to maintain. Modern lifestyles can encourage bad eating and exercise habits, which make keeping slim a difficult goal to achieve. In countries where many retail developments and leisure venues are increasingly located on the periphery of urban centres the importance of the motor car is likely to continue unchallenged unless either regulation or the cost of ownership makes cars less affordable. The situation of more children travelling to school by car or public transport may become more extreme in future if more children travel greater distances to access the best-ranked schools in a parallel of more adults commuting to work over greater distances. With a growing dependence on cars and public transport to travel ever further to school, fewer children are regularly benefiting from the moderate exercise of walking, which limits the amount of ‘unnoticed’ exercise taken by children. Consumption of food though is of course an issue. In Europe, children consume more than the population average in many energy-dense, indulgence food and drink categories. European kids consume 17% more than the population average in confectionery (9.8% UK), 23% in Savoury Snacks (20.4% UK), almost 26% in Ice Cream (27.5% UK), and 33% in fizzy drinks (31.4% UK). Furthermore, a reliance on packaged food to provide balanced nutrition has led to many children accessing a diet that is geared too much towards convenience rather than balanced nourishment. In the western world children are now suffering because their diet is not balanced and is too rich in calories.

Obesogenic environments and lifestyles contribute to growing childhood obesity
Much of the problem of childhood obesity is that the conditions for its prevalence are so rife, making a healthy weight more difficult to maintain. Modern lifestyles can encourage bad eating and exercise habits, which make keeping slim a difficult goal to achieve. In countries where many retail developments and leisure venues are increasingly located on the periphery of urban centres the importance of the motor car is likely to continue unchallenged unless either regulation or the cost of ownership makes cars less affordable.

The situation of more children travelling to school by car or public transport may become more extreme in future if more children travel greater distances to access the best-ranked schools in a parallel of more adults commuting to work over greater distances. With a growing dependence on cars and public transport to travel ever further to school, fewer children are regularly benefiting from the moderate exercise of walking, which limits the amount of ‘unnoticed’ exercise taken by children.

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