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Why Is Child Obesity an Important Health Problem in America?

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Why Is Child Obesity an Important Health Problem in America?
Why Is Child Obesity an Important Health Problem in America?
Webster University
Unknown Student
Techniques of substance Abuse Counseling
Dr. Barbara Omer
July 28, 2002

Abstract
Obesity is a chronic state of being overweight. It 's a life threatening condition and current research has shown that obesity is the leading cause for the increased health threats that persons of the developed world face. Obesity increases a person 's threat for contracting diabetes, strokes, heart problems, certain kinds of cancer etc. What 's worse is the over two thirds of the industrialized world 's population is suffering from obesity and that 's putting them in greater health dangers. In recent years, policymakers and medical experts have expressed alarm about the growing problem of childhood obesity in the United States. While most agree that the issue deserves attention, consensus dissolves around how to respond to the problem. This literature review examines one approach to treating childhood obesity: medication. The paper compares the effectiveness for adolescents of the only two drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the long term treatment of obesity, sibutramine and orlistat. This examination of pharmacological treatments for obesity points out the limitations of medication and suggests the need for a comprehensive solution that combines medical , social, behavioral, and political approaches to the complex problem.

Why Is Child Obesity an Important Health Problem in America?
A Review of the literature
According to researcher, Tyre (2004), In March 2004, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona called attention to a health problem in the United States that, until recently, has been overlooked: childhood obesity” 15% child obesity rate constitutes an “epidemic”. Since the early 1980s that rate has “doubled in children and tripled in adolescents.” Now more than nine million children are classified as obese. While the traditional response to



References: Berkowitz, R.I., Wadden, T.A., Tershakovec, A.M., & Conquist, J.L. (2003). Behavior therapy and sibutramine for the treatment of adolescent obesity. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, 1805-1812. Critser, G. (2003). Fat Land. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 250-255. Ebbeling CB, Pawlak DB, Ludwig DS. Childhood obesity: public-health crisis, common sense cure (2002). The New York Times; 360: 473-82. Flegal, K. M., Carroll, M.D., Ogden, C. L., & Johnson, C. L. (2002). Prevalence and trends in Obesity among U.S Lee CD, Blair SN, Jackson SJ. Cardiovascular fitness, body composition, and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in children (1999). Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 69:373-80. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, & Curtin LR. Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States, (2009). The New England Journal of Medicine, 500:1549-1555. Robinson, T. N., & Killen, J. D. (2004). Body image, eating disorders, and obesity in youth.Phychology. Journal of the American Medical of Association, 32(3), 167-169. Tyre, P. (2004). Fighting big fat. Newsweek, pp. 38-40. Willett WC, Manson JE. The relationship between overweight in adolescence and premature death in women (2002). Journal of the American Medical Association, 145:91-97. Yanovski, S.Z. & Yanovski, J.A. (2002). Drug therapy: obesity. The Journal of Medicine, 346:591-602.

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