Childhood obesity in the United States has become a huge health concern for children under the age of 18. Childhood obesity is defined as when children are above the average weight for their height, age, and sex. Many of these children are above the 95th percentile for their normal weight. According to Mann et al. (2015), “one in four preschool-aged children are overweight or obese” (pg. 2). That is a huge amount of children who are becoming obese in the United States. The prevalence of childhood obesity continues to rise in the United States. Not only does childhood obesity affect the child by having an increased body mass index, but this also can also lead to many more health problems for individuals in the future. With the high rates of childhood obesity, there are many other …show more content…
Obesity is shown to be related to lower “income, economic conditions, education, geographic location, and access to resources” (Sealy, 2010, pg. 567). Families that have lower incomes are not able to afford the healthy foods because they are priced higher than unhealthy foods. Families are able to buy more food that are non-nutritious than the nutritious meals because they cost less. Not only buying the foods that are cheaper, but fast to make. Families are eating fast food more. It is faster and cheaper for a family to buy McDonald's than to buy all the supplies to make the meal. Not only are families eating more fast foods, but the families with lower income may not have healthy foods available to eat. Many families who live on lower incomes live in poorer neighborhoods. In these neighborhoods, there are no grocery stores available for families to buy nutritious meals. In lower income neighborhoods children are getting less exercise which can be a risk factor to becoming obese. The neighborhoods have less parks and areas for children to play outside. This can cause children to be inactive and potentially lead to childhood