The Causes Of Childhood Obesity

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Annotated Bibliography

This research will look at what students understand to be the causes of childhood obesity and in particular how parental influence including genetic influences impact on childhood obesity. This annotated bibliography will look at ten different sources of information that were available in connection with parental influence in childhood obesity. The key themes that will be identified in this bibliography are that parental influences, in most cases are contributing to childhood obesity. This is highlighted through activities during pregnancy that have shown to be an influential factor in obesity in children. Socio-economic and parental weight factors are also highlighted to be another key theme in obesity in children.

This Book explores the parental influences and misperceptions of overweight infants. It suggest that many parents were not concerned about their children been overweight and believed that it was healthy, or for the parents that were overweight themselves believed that their children were overweight as they were genetically prone to be so. A study in Mexico and Greece showed that parents who were not concerned about their children’s weight tend to have low income and education. Similarly, a study in the Netherlands showed that this misperception existed regardless of the parent’s income or education levels. However, this research showed that this misperception can be corrected with the correct support and information provided by health care professional, as they can provide parents with a growth charts and the tools so that parents can compare their children’s weight status and growth patterns and prevent their children becoming overweight or obesity. This research also showed that if the health care professional that weigh our children in first two years and observe the environment that child is in and also look at the parents BMI, the health professional can monitor the babies weight more, and advise the parents that their children weight is increasing rapidly and can be a cause of concern to the child becoming obesity.

This journal article reviews recent literature and studies, mainly carried out in the United States, It looks at children’s food behaviours and children’s weight. It sets out to look at how parent’s child feeding behaviours impact on children’s weight. It highlights that when children know that their parents are monitoring and watching their food selection, that the children make healthier food choices. Pressuring behaviours by adults, such as bribing children to eat healthy foods, predicted a low fat and high healthy intake. These results’ suggests that some parental influence have beneficial effects of dietary intake and weight. Parental restriction of food intake was found to be a contributing factor to weight gain it notes that girls who ate large amounts of snack food when they weren’t hungry were four and a half times as likely to be overweight when they were five and seven. Unlike any other article that has been mentioned in this annotated bibliography, this journal article looks mainly towards the positive side of parental influences on reducing childhood obesity.

This article through extensive literature review sets out to look at childhood obesity as a health crisis in the United States. It goes on to examine the causes and effects of obesity. Energy intake/outtake is described as being one possible cause, while another possible cause can be genetics with five genetic mutations been identified as a cause of obesity. It also highlights that prenatal over-nutrition might have an effect of lifelong risk of obesity. If the mother is obese it increases the transfer of nutrients across the placenta, inducing permanent changes in appetite, neuroendocrine functioning, or energy metabolism. It also notes that those who are bottle fed as a baby are more at risk at being obese than those who were breastfed. Family factors were also highlighted as a contributory factor, with more families eating out with less control over what is being eaten. Lastly it notes that children who may be neglected, depressed are or other related problems are at substantially increased risk for obesity during childhood and later in life. . This is supported by McCrory (2012) where this reports highlights that children who are breastfed as a baby are at a lower risk in become obese as a child.

This article sets out to show how parents weight issues and socio-economic factors impact on in Ireland. The researcher interviewed families that were deemed eligible. It found that those who ranked lower in SES indicators (SES variables being household income, maternal education, and household class) were expected to be obese than to those who were marked higher. Children were also found to be more likely obese or overweight if their mother was either overweight or obese. It also highlighted the fact that if a child is in a one-parent family home where the parent is obese it is more likely to be obese (41%) Having lower household class and lack of maternal education was also found to be predictors of childhood obesity rather than household income. The main principal findings of this research are that children were at more risk to become obese if they come from families with parents who are overweight or obese, than those who come from families were the parents would be considered to have a normal weight.

This article sets to look at the relation between maternal smoking and childhood obesity. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken by school entrants in six schools in Germany, where an extensive self-administered questionnaire was given to participants. It found that there is higher prevalence of obesity in children whose mothers had smoked during their pregnancy. The report shows that there are a lower percentage of obese children whose parents did not smoke when pregnant, and that the percentage increased to those born where ten cigarettes were smoked daily and increased again where ten or more cigarettes were smoked daily.

It highlights that even though it is expected that babies born to mothers that smoke during pregnancy are normally known to have a low birth rate, it offers the reason of ‘catch up growth’ for the reason of obesity. When a child is born where the mother smoked during pregnancy, throughout that first year of the life there is a catch up growth, it is this catch up growth/ weight gain that is seen to be associated as a risk of childhood obesity.Similar to Project Vita (2012), this article looks at how the mother’s actions while pregnant can influence childhood obesity.

This Research is based on the finding of 9 year old children growing up in Ireland and new finding by the ESRI have found that children who are breast fed for three to six months are 38% are less likely to be overweight or obese compare to children that are formula fed. Those children that are breastfed for six months or more are 51% less likely to be overweight or obese by the age of nine years. Other findings in Research by the GUI in infant cohort showed that children who are weaned onto solid food later are at lower risk of obesity. This research showed that Ireland had the lowest breastfeeding rate in Europe, in the Growing up in Ireland data showed that 55% of new mothers in Ireland breastfeed to some extent but only 38% are breastfeeding after a month and less than 15% are still breastfeeding by six months and almost 46% of infants in Ireland are weaned onto solid food by 4 months. This research showed that the benefits of breastfeeding infants and weaning infants onto solid food later can have a big impact and can help to tackle the worrying concern for rapid weight gain and obesity in children today. Similar to Ebbeling(2002) this reports shows that children who are breastfed are less like to become obese than those who are bottle fed.

This book contains American based reports on the causes of child hood obesity. A committee was set up as part of a government action plan to prevent childhood obesity. The committee assigned to this task covered, different data bases from 4000 journals covering various subjects such as: chemistry, life and health, sciences to psychology. With the initial research the committee’s main findings of the report showed too many calories are ingested through food and drinks and too few calories are expanded through lack of physical exercise. With the most motivated parents/caregiver and a child who wants to avoid becoming obese, the report showed the lack of accessibility to recreational opportunities has a strong impact on the likely hood of children becoming obese. This report was very detailed and gave huge insight to the different causes of obesity, and also gave very clear action plans for the government on how to reduce obesity in children and adults.

This research examined self-reported data from 2,119 parents and caregivers who took part in the 2006 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survery/Community Health Database. The research suggested that parent stressors could be associated with childhood obesity which includes: leading a single-parent household, financial strain, and poor physical and mental health. These households had children aged 3 to 17, twenty-five percent of whom were obese. Of the examined one parent families were more inclined to have obese children and also families with financial stress. It showed that parents who were stressed would be more inclined to purchase food with high fat and sugar contents in order to save time, or decrease the demands of meal arrangement. The author also believed that parental stress could lead to less supervision of children, who may make unwise food and activity decisions. The research also suggested that reducing levels of parental stress and teaching coping skills could help public health campaigns in dealing with childhood obesity.

This article reports on a longitudinal study of the causes obesity in women and children, the study is an American project called Project Vita. This study was interested in the effects of weight gain and obesity in pregnant women and the long term effects this would have on the children. The project started in 1990 by Dr. Gillman and his colleagues; they were interested in the health, diets and other factors that could affect children before and after birth. In one study the team noted the different amounts of weight gained in 1044 pregnant. One-third of the mothers were overweight before being pregnant, ten percent of these children were overweight by the age of three. The ages of the women surveyed were not mentioned and this may have altered the results. The findings showed, how gaining more that the recommended amount of weight while pregnant, poses a higher risk of obesity in children at the age of three. From these studies in 1990 the suggestion was to increase the awareness of the recommended weight gained during pregnancies. Like Kries (2004), who also looks at the influences the mother, has on the unborn child, project vita looks at a different aspect of the impact on the child from the mother’s actions while pregnant. Each came to the same conclusion, that the mother’s action while pregnant poses a higher risk of obesity in children.

This Irish government report shows the increasing levels of obesity in Ireland and other European countries. To get a national average for the height and weight of Irish children, the data was taken from a survey done by The Irish Oral Health Research Centre, this survey carried out a national survey on children’s dental health in 2001-20002. The National Task Force of Ireland used this data when composing the report. The details in the report showed statics and factors that are causing the increasing levels of obesity. The results showed that in. Ireland in 2002 parents were not monitoring the amount of food child were eating outside the home. 51% of the children were consuming on a daily rate, fizzy drinks, crisps, chips and burger. Portion sizes, advertising of energy-dense food (processed) and fast foods all these factors were found to be some of the cause leading to overweight and obesity problems for the children of Ireland. This reports made recommendations to the government, such as advising parents on the types of food and exercise a child should have on a daily basis, these were to be implemented across all sectors as obesity is a nationwide problem

This annotated bibliography has looked at ten different sources of information each highlighting how parental influence is one of the main causes of obesity in children. A key point that has emerged through this bibliography is that the mother plays one of the main roles in the cycle of childhood obesity. The mother’s behaviours in pregnancy are shown to have a major impact on the weight of the child. The lack of maternal education was also shown to be a contributing factor towards obesity in children. Parental monitoring or lack thereof of food intake was also shown to have bearing on childhood obesity. Another key issue that has arisen is that the environment including social economic factors where a child lives can impact on their mental state and in this in turn can impact on their body weight. From reading this bibliography it is clear that more parental intervention is needed through for an example government educational programs that make parents more aware that their actions do impact on their children’s overall health.