A person’s personality
A person’s personality is based on two determinants: these are Heredity and Social Environment (Roldan, 2007, 3). True indeed that a child’s brain may well be considered as a dry sponge that is open to absorb any kind of liquid, in this case, knowledge and experience that the child observes around his environment. A nurturing Family may not always produce healthy individuals because a child, as he grows up, may be exposed to a totally opposite experience as he grows up around a different type of social environment, which could consist of even relatives, friends and other social groups.
Family is indeed the foundation of man’s personality. Deprivations, at any given point in a man’s life, starting from birth, up until the stage of adolescence, may cause fixations, and inevitable lead to obsessions or maladjustment. In this case, it has been, and will always be a challenge for parents to keep sure of their child’s well being. Parents play a good role guiding, leading and setting good example for their children.
Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, counting three decades back, childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years, and it has more than tripled for children between 6-11 years of age, (“Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, 1999-2002”; Oct. 6, 2004), This indeed is a scary fact.
Question would be a clear statement of failure of some parents to truly concentrate on their child’s health and food intake. It is with no doubt that children are totally dependent on their parents. Therefore, what the Parent provides, is all what the child gets. This is relative to a child’s basic needs, like: food, shelter and clothing. Since the topic in hand focuses on obesity, the basic need in question is the food provided to a child.
Parents must always make sure that even when their busy schedules do not allow them to provide healthy and hearty home cooked meals for their children, they should provide quick, yet healthy alternatives for the children to consume. There is tons of microwavable food available but the parents must check and choose only those that would provide the most nutrients and the least amount of fat for their children. Keeping junk food like chips, dips, cookies, chocolates and all other sorts of preserved and high in fat and sugar foods must be kept away from the child’s open reach.
A parent must control the intake of junk food for it is these items that leads up to a child’s obesity, and even other health related problems like early stages of heart diseases due to high sodium contents from chips, or early stages of diabetes due to overly sweetened cookies, donuts and ice cream just for starters. It would also help that Parents themselves eat hearty and healthy foods alongside their children, because indeed, Parents must set a good example for their children.
As early as babies could consume food outside of their usual baby food, Parents must train their babies early by gradually installing healthy eating habits and slowly introducing mashed veggies or fruits to develop the baby’s taste buds to tolerate and be familiarized with healthy organic foods, but only after the infancy stage is over, which is right around the second or the third year of life, when a baby is no longer dependent on milk alone. With the infancy stage being exempted, a child’s body stretches and grows the most between the childhood and adolescence stage.
Therefore, proper eating habits are a must for a child to reach its full potential of growth and height in these stages, which clearly depends on the nutrients absorbed through proper eating habits provided by the child’s Parents. This is the only way obesity can be controlled, along side the Parent’s dutiful responsibility of exerting effort in making sure their child is physically active by taking personal time out off of their busy schedule to bond with their children in parks, beaches and other recreational areas, as compared to sitting at home on the couch drinking soda and eating junk food in front of the television or play station.
On the other hand, Parents can only do so much. As a child grows, the child will inevitable be exposed to an external family called his Social Environment, like: friends, classmates, peers, church groups and the like, but most importantly, the child will be spending ample time in school, which could be considered as the child’s second home. Therefore, it is a must that Educators be aware of the growing child obesity problem and must take action in helping prevent, if not do damage control, by creating programs geared for a more physically oriented activities in school outside of the usual physical education subjects.
Academics are important, but so much more is health. Schools and educators should come up with extra curricular activities or clubs that will stimulate a child’s interest in outdoor sports or any type of physical activities. Some suggested activities could be: weight training, sprints club, karate/taekwando clubs, triathlon clubs, dancing, gymnastics, tennis, and the list goes on and one.
But the catch is that the Government must be willing to support such proposal because not only will these produce healthy and less obese children, it will also occupy a child’s time and mind, in a beneficial way as compared to doing nothing, or getting into other deviant activities like smoking, drinking and drugs. When a child is occupied in physical activities like sports and other outdoor activities, their minds would be occupied and their bodies will be worn down, in a good way of course.
These activities will not only help obese children burn fat and get into a more fit and healthy body, this could also affect their lifestyle in a very good way. And through these physical activities, by the time the child hits home, there is nothing left to do but eat healthy, because they’d feel too guilty to eat unhealthy and gain back all those pounds they lost, and thus encouraged child to reach his full potential. Building a child’s self esteem is the most important factor here, because without self esteem, there is no self confidence.
In Conclusion, the above proposal is easier said than done, but when all else fails, our Family, which is the foundation of our society, and Educators, which we all know, school is a child’s second home, must sincerely work hand in hand to lessen the rapid increase rate of obesity amongst children. Like Whitney Houston’s song, The Greatest Love of All, says, “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way…” is so true, but how can a child be a good leader, or citizen for that matter, when a child can’t even lead his own body to the path of health and wellness?
How will children be able to take and be responsible for others, when they were never taught how to take responsibility of their own self and their own health? A child do not have the power to change anything unless taught how to do so. Obesity is spreading quite rapidly, Parents and Educators, with the support of the Government, must move now and not when it’s too late. As the saying goes, “Health is Wealth. ” This is as true as, “If there is no Health, there is no Wealth. ” References:
Committee on Health and Behavior: Research, Practice and Policy, Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health. (2001). Health and Behavior: The Interplay between the Biological, Behavioral, and Societal Influences: Executive Summary (15 pages). Washington, DC: National Academic Press. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2004). Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, 1999-2002. Roldan, A, (2004). On Becoming A Winner: What Makes A Winning Personality (p. 3). Quezon City, Philippines. National Book Store.
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