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Genetic or Environmental
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Below is one of our free research papers on Genetic or Environmental. If the term paper below is not exactly what you're looking for, you can search our essay database for other topics.
Childhood obesity is very common in the United States. In fact, in 2002, 16% of children ages 6-19 were overweight (“Childhood Obesity”). “In June of 2010, one state was made up of less than 10% obese children, 24 states 10% to less than 15%, 17 states 15% to less than 20%, and eight states 20% to less than 25%” (“F as in Fat”). There is a difference between overweight and obese. Overweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors, while obese is having excess body fat. Childhood obesity can cause diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep problems, and cancer later in life. 11.3% of all people age 20 and younger have diabetes. Also, children who are obese are more likely to have bladder, pancreatic, mouth, and respiratory-tract cancers as adults. Some reasons that childhood obesity is becoming such an epidemic are that not enough healthy school lunches are being provided, eating too many high calorie snacks, watching television, eating due to stress or boredom, and genetic or hereditary factors.
Eating lunch from the school cafeteria rather than bringing it from home has a somewhat negative effect on children’s weight. Children who eat school lunches are more likely to be overweight or obese, eat two or more servings of fatty meats like fried chicken or hot dogs daily, and have two or more sugar-filled drinks a day. Also, they are less likely to eat at least two servings of f...
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