the role of diet in preventing underweight, overweight, and obesity

Everyone’s bodies are anatomically designed to be different. Those who have obesity in their family may be unfortunately stuck with genes that are going to make them a bigger person. But many of those who are overweight have a terrible diet and are not physically active.

We must not only teach ourselves how to be healthy, but teach our children as well. Most all of their habits, they learn from their parents, especially the way they eat. Children are going to eat the way their parents do, and it's really important that parents provide their children with the proper foods that are going to be beneficial to them now as well as in the future. "Obesity is rampant in the United States and is becoming increasing common worldwide. The increase in obesity prevalence is due to two major factors, plentiful supplies of inexpensive foods and sedentary jobs. Both are driven in no small part by technology. Thanks to technology, production of large quantities of cheap food is possible, and manual work is rapidly disappearing. In areas of the world in which these advances have not penetrated, obesity is not a significant public health problem. Thus, obesity is a direct result of technological advance and represents a major challenge for technological society. Obesity must also be recognized as a product of free society in which a multitude of food choices and job opportunities are available. A public health approach to the problem of obesity that restricts choice will not be acceptable to a free society. This fact puts increased responsibility on the individual to recognize the underlying causes of obesity and modify behavior to reduce the personal burden of obesity” (Grundy, S).
Obesity continues to grow at an alarming rate, because we are eating unhealthy, and that's what we are teaching our children. That is how they will grow up and know how to eat, and that's how they will teach their children to eat. We need to break the cycle and get healthy!
Instilling physical activity is also really important. In today's society, kids aren't outside playing or being as physically active as previous generations. Children are stuck in front of televisions, video games, or sitting around eating unhealthy foods instead of being a kid! Parents need to take responsibility, and make sure their kids are getting physical activity daily. Whether it be signing them up for a sports team, taking them outside to play, taking a family bike ride, walking the dog, the list is endless! 

References

Grundy, S. M. (2004). Obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. Retrieved on December 17^th, 2012 from http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/89/6/2595.full