The Childhood Obesity Epidemic PDF

INTRODUCTION

Childhood obesity, a serious and escalating medical condition that affects children in developed and underdeveloped countries alike, has significant potential comorbidities and increased risk for numerous chronic diseases. Its prevalence has more that tripled in the last 30 years, and at present more than 30 percent of American children are overweight or obese.

The cause for the increased rates of childhood obesity is a complex mix of environmental, genetic, medical, and bio-psychosocial factors. It is a medical condition that progresses over time to become a medical disease, one that is frustrating for both children and their families, as well as for their health care providers. It has become a condition that is diffi cult to prevent and disappointing to treat—and yet relentless in its ability to reduce an individual's health and quality of life, while at the same time, increasing the cost of health-care services to society. Unfortunately, to make the situation still more grave, it's a situation from which few obese children will be able to outgrow.

This urgent crisis, addressed in this compendium of research articles, must be more clearly understood. Researchers, clinicians, and ordinary people alike are faced with the challenge of building a broader and more practical comprehension of what causes childhood obesity, what its consequences are, and what can be done to prevent and/or treat it. This research contained in this volume provide the reader with a rich, diverse, and probing examination of what forces infl uence the epidemic of childhood obesity and what can be done to end it.