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Adult Influence on Childhood Obesity
Teaching healthy behaviors at a young age is important since change becomes more difficult with age. Behaviors involving physical activity and nutrition are the cornerstone of preventing obesity in children and adolescents. Families and schools are the two most critical links in providing the foundation for those behaviors. Families
Parents are the most important role models for children. Results from an American Obesity Association survey show that: - The majority of parents in the U.S. (78%) believe that physical education or recess should not be reduced or replaced with academic classes.
- Almost 30% of parents said that they are "somewhat" or "very" concerned about their children's weight.
- 12% of parents considered their child overweight.
- Comparing their own childhood health habits to their children's, 27% of parents said their children eat less nutritiously, and 24% said their children are less physically active.
- 35% of parents rated their children's school programs for teaching good patterns of eating and physical activity to prevent obesity as "poor," "non-existent," or "don't know."
- Among six choices of what they believed to be the greatest risk to their children's long-term health and quality of life, 5.6% of parents chose "being overweight or obese." More parents selected other choices as the greatest risk: alcohol (6.1%), sexually transmitted disease (10%), smoking (13.3%), violence (20.3%), and illegal drugs (24%).
- In terms of their own behavior, 61% of parents said that it would be either "not very difficult" or "not at all difficult" to change their eating and/or physical activity patterns if it would help prevent obesity in any of their children.
Parents appear to underestimate the health risk of excess weight to their children, and the difficulty in achieving and maintaining behavioral changes associated with obesity prevention. Creating an Active Environment in Schools
Nationwide in 1999, approximately 56% of high school students were enrolled in a physical education (PE) class and only 29% attended PE class daily, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Youth Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (YRBSS). Participation in high school sports was 55%, with a higher participation rate from male students (62%) than females (48%).
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