The Tie Betwixt Childhood Obesity and Fast Food

Is there in truth an associatin between childhood obesity and fast food? The response will deviate depending upon whom you ask. Evidently the fast food industry prefer to deny such an association. But parents had best consider the facts. Obesity isn't merely a problem of how a youngster looks. It also stands for many dangerous and even deadly health conditions. Being heavy is linked to asthma, arthritis, joint damage, heard disease, diabetes, many, urarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory distress, and chronic pain. So, considering whether or not childhood obesity and fast food are affiliated can mean saving a child's health. Let's look at this subject a bit closer.

One reason to think that there's a connection between childhood obesity and fast food is that obesity is a modern-day problem. Physicians have never encountered as many cases of it in the past as they do now. It appears as if it's no coincidence that we also have more fast food restaurants now than ever before! These restaurants are on just about every street corner in the U.S. They are even inside of many other businesses such as retail stores, libraries, office buildings, and even schools. But the number of restaurants and the number of cases of children being overweight doesn't itself prove that there's a connection between childhood obesity and fast food.

Evenso, you would do well to consider the types of foods served up at fast food restaurants. With this in mind, the association between childhood obesity and fast food may be more conspiciuous. Just about all items on a fast food menu are very calorie-dense. This means that they provide a lot of calories for the amount of food you're getting. Most medium sized hamburgers have about 500 or more calories. Compare that to a turkey sandwich on wheat bread which might have around 200 calories. And, of course, along with the hamburger comes fries and a soda, and possibly even a milkshake or dessert.

The association between childhood obesity and fast food gets obvious when you think about how frequently children eat these kinds of meals. Simply one fast food meal can hold a full day's worth of calories. A youngster that eats these meals many times per week or more than one per day can mean they're literally eating thousands of extra calories per week.

The quantity of calories that an individual will typically consume at a fast food restaurant is an obvious connection between childhood obesity and fast food. If a child is active enough to burn the extra calories it might not be a problem. But many children nowdays live very sedentary lives, sitting in front of the television screen during their spare time instead of than being outside playing. While the connection between childhood obesity and fast food is obvious, fast food isn't the only perpetrator or cause to the problem. A parent had best get their child up and active in order to preserve his or her health.

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