The Economics Of Childhood Obesity |
Childhood obesity has become a serious epidemic issue in the United States and many other parts in the world, at least 30% of children between ages six and eleven have an obesity problem and if this continues we will see a new generation with a shorter life expectancy.
Lets try to look at some of the economics of childhood obesity and what factors are causing this problem. Some people say that being obese is a matter of choices, you decide what you want to eat, how much you want to eat and how often you want to eat.
However there are many factors that affect the way we make our choices. Its true that we are responsible for what we eat, but each month companies spend millions of dollars in advertising their junk and fast food. There are many unhealthy snacks that children are exposed to every day multiple times.
Children see the junk snacks on tv, school, street, supermarket, malls and everywhere they go those junk food are the more cheap so parents end up buying those.
Economics has a great impact in childhood obesity, for example, fast food is very convenient to many people because is easy to get, but for owners is even better because they can produce thousands of junk food meals every day that lack of nutrients and are high in fat and sugars. Those fast food meals are cheap and easy to create and people buy it.
The same goes for snacks of every kind they are easy to make and reproduce, they lack of any healthy nutrients and are high in sugars because that is what increases the good taste of their products. So even when companies know that they are selling millions of unhealthy junk food they will not do anything about it because its profitable and creating something healthy will cost more and sell less, simple economics.
We used to cook our food high in proteins and vegetables, but now we are just buying what we see on our grocery stores. So, its true that we are making the wrong food choices, but its also true that most of our choices are junk food, there is no balance and people are falling for this.
The economics of childhood obesity is more complex, but in simple terms companies need to produce cheap, produce in huge quantities and advertise in millions to sell millions. There is also the problem that people with not much budget cant afford to make healthy food on their homes, so they buy something cheap outside.
Quick Tip #1
Dont take your child to eat Fast Food, avoid the the most you can. |
Quick Tip #2
Encourage your child to practice Sports and Take him with his friends to play |
Quick Tip #3
Avoid eating too much Sugar, if you child eats too much sugar or junk foods and watchs TV all day, he will get obese. |
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