Teen Obesity: Is Lack Of Education The Real Cause?

What keeps people from being able to lose weight? It's often said to be a lack of motivation, but for obese teens, the problem might be a lack of health education. A new study found that although 76 percent of obese teens have reported that they are trying to lose weight, their actions show that they might not be properly informed about how to make healthy decisions that will result in weight loss.

According to the recent study of Philadelphia high school students,14 percent of all American teens are obese, and over three-quarters of them are trying to lose weight. The problem? These teens might not know how to do it in a healthy way. Obese teens who said that they were trying to lose weight were twice as likely to smoke as obese teens who were not trying to lose weight. And while obese girls who were trying to lose weight were 40 percent more likely to exercise for an hour per day than those who were not trying to lose weight, they were also three times as likely to drink soda every day -- undoing many of the benefits of exercising. For obese boys, those trying to lose weight were actually found to be less active than boys who were not trying to lose weight -- in fact, they were 47 percent more likely to play video games for three hours each day.

And it's not just obese teens. A recent study in New Zealand found that girls who are trying to lose weight often adopt unhealthy habits such as smoking and skipping meals: nearly a third of 14 to 15-year-old girls skipped breakfast, and around 25 percent didn't eat lunch the day before. The girls tended to avoid protein-dense and nutrient-rich foods that they thought to be "fattening," such as dairy and red meat -- yet around 25 percent ate chocolate or sweets regularly.

Making healthy decisions isn't just about what you eat and how often you exercise -- the amount of shut-eye teens get is a big part of the equation, too. Another recent study found that getting less than eight hours of sleep per night was associated with obesity in male teens, and that getting less than seven hours of sleep on weeknights was correlated with a higher body mass index in male and female teens, as compared with teens who slept more than seven hours.

What do you think: should your school focus more on how to make healthy choices, for example how to eat better and get more sleep? Where do you go to get information on food, dieting, and general health? How do you think eating disorders (like bulimia and crash dieting) factor into the results these studies, if they should at all? Share your reactions in the comments.

Comments

[keeganrb]

05:43 PM on 11/07/2011

Although I do certainly agree with the fact that these kids should be educated better on this, because it is very apparent in school, I also think that making everyone eat the same "healthy", small portioned stuff is a bunch of baloney. I, like many of my friends and a scrawny teenage boy trying to get some meat on my bones. I would really enjoy to not be forced into helping all of these other kids lose weight by myself losing weight due to inadequate portions.

[Duckworth Ann]

04:08 PM on 11/04/2011

I see obesity as more of an escape behavior where food acts as a drug for many children and adults. I feel the medical or genetic model is leaving out many environmental variables we could be using to better understand how our individual environments greatly affect thinking, learning, and also our mental/emotional health. In my learning theory I redefine average stress as layers of mental frictions that take up mental energy. Try to picture an upright rectangle representing our full mental energy. Now begin adding from the bottom horizontal lines to represent our layers of mental frictions. The space we have left represents leftover mental energy to think, learn, and have good mental/emotional health. As those layers of mental frictions increase (as can happen to all of us) it can create shorter reflection time and psychological suffering that can lead to many forms of escape, from over eating to drug/alcohol abuse and suicide. As a teacher, I am seeing a form of learned helplessness by many students due to the false teachings of genetics and no hope to improve. For boys video games works as both an escape and also a temporary build of achievement to help generate feelings of honor/love (boys must generate love/honor from society). By helping students more permanently reduce layers of mental frictions we help students in so many ways. http://learningtheory.homestead.com/Theory.html

[Emm Snn]

08:52 AM on 11/02/2011

Yes it is a lack of education. CNN and BBC showed that obesity and diabetes is getting worst. 117,000 poeple became diabetic in only 12 months See here http://spirithappy.org/wp/2011/10/29/how-to-lose-weight-with-diabetes-117-000-more-diabetic-in-just-12-months/