Modifiable Behaviors to Prevent Child Obesity, Research Paper Example

Abstract

Childhood obesity is a steadily increasing concern for both health care professionals and the public at large. As the trend continues, potentially dangerous patterns of eating behavior are being adopted at early ages, and this factor points to a greater difficulty in altering these patterns as individuals grow older. Social cognitive theory holds that such behaviors are typically learned, so assessing the means by which children learn unhealthy eating habits may provide the solution to modifying these behaviors for the better.

Overview

In the past decade, alarming statistics indicate a striking and recent rise in childhood obesity. With obesity technically defined as an excess of twenty percent or more over an expected weight based upon height and age, that same twenty percent is the approximate number of school-age children in the United States and other industrialized nations who are obese. The number is as well increasing yearly, despite media and health industry attention now focused on the issue.

This issue of childhood obesity is a relatively new phenomenon; generations past were not free of overweight children, but the percentage was distinctly less. More tellingly, there was little awareness of it as a problem simply because the problem itself was minimal. Traditionally far more active physically than adults, children typically were in no danger of facing obesity. The overweight child was the exception, and not a significant percentage of the child population.

In addressing this major health problem, social cognitive theory is strongly indicated as an explanation for why the situation is so recent and extreme. Modern life, or modern life as experienced within the current generation, is radically different from that which previous generations knew.  Since the 1980’s, children have been exposed to a great deal of media beyond the television of decades past, and these forms of media are translating into daily experience as well. “Increased television watching, less physical exercise, food advertising directed at children, and larger portions in fast-food restaurants have been implicated in the increasing rate of childhood obesity” (Davies, 2010, p. 328).

To properly confront the issue of childhood obesity, then, the various influences of media as impacting on it through social cognition must be examined. Moreover, it is equally essential that this media impact be viewed in its entirety, as the source and/or influences of other childhood activities which may promote unhealthy eating habits and obesity.

Media Exposure and Effects

Children today are, as is well known, technologically savvy. In the 1970’s, this was represented by the child who was adept at using the television remote control; today, it lies in the average child’s skill in employing a multitude of electronic devices geared for entertainment and communication, from the computer in the child’s bedroom to the Internet-enabled form of cell phone carried always. This pervasive element of technology at hand, no matter where the child is, translates to an influx of media that is virtually ceaseless.

Almost all media is governed by one force, and it is not a supervisory one: commerce. Every program, video game, move, or even mode of simple communication children employ to call or text one another, relies upon advertising. This in turns means promoting the sale to children of whatever is thought most likely to get them to spend, or encourage their parents to purchase for them. Added to this equation is the increased mobility technology allows for children as well as adults, wherein traditional time frames for study, sleep, entertainment and eating no longer apply. What this then leads to is a substantial amount of advertising geared to children and promoting fast, easily accessible, and generally unhealthy foods, obtainable at chain venues everywhere.

Moreover, these technologically-empowered children are empowered to be independent as well, and the inherent safety factor of the child’s being able to call the parent from anywhere translates to less actual parental time with the child, and subsequently less parental influence over the choices the child makes. This actually occurs within the home: “…Media exposure has likely become a personalized, rather than a family, activity. In general, greater personalized time for children with media might imply there is less parental supervision” (Kunkel, 2008, p. 108).

In view of these “micro-environments wherein children today are isolated with only themselves and media, social cognition becomes a direct line. In this case, it is not matter of children absorbing ideas of behaviors through a variety of actual, living scenarios, but more a form of instruction. Sophisticated and complex advertising presentations are placed before children virtually constantly, and a great deal of what they are selling is unhealthy food.

The less advanced technology at play here is the processed food products, and these are easily marketed through the devices used by children. The food industries have known for some time that attracting young consumers means a potential lifetime of consumerism; the customer hooked while young will purchase for life, provided the product is appealing, and appeal is often manufactured through the introduction of sugar and fats. Beverages alone constitute a huge market of what is geared specifically for children: “According to food consumption surveys, young children consume large amounts of sweetened beverages…to the detriment of the overall nutritional balance of their diet…” (Brown, Isaacs, and Krinke, 2007, p. 285).

There is no definitive means of establishing the real impact of mass marketing advertising of foods on children. Valuable consumers, young children nonetheless serve more as an instrument to sales, rather than as direct buyers. Most under a certain age simply must rely upon their parents to purchase the desired, and frequently unhealthy, items for them. Fully aware of this, advertising puts forth a double-pronged approach, one which exponentially increases the desirability of the product. The children are swayed to want the item and therefore request it of their parents, and the parents are directly appealed to as wanting to satisfy these desires of their children. The strategy is effective on many levels, not the least of which is its pervasiveness. Everybody is eating the same snack, basically, because everybody believes that everyone else is eating it too, and buying it for the children. This is where social cognition theory expands from a direct link, and the media source then employs daily life itself to pass along the learned behaviors.

Residual Effect of Media

Less apparent in the power of media on persuading children to eat foods likely to create obesity is how the technology behind the media is causing a substantially more sedentary daily life for children. This is, however, a vital component in childhood obesity. From the 1950’s through the 1970’s, the great concern of parents was that the children were planted for hours in front of the television. This occurs today but, when the television is abandoned by the child, he will then retreat to the computer in his room. Even text communication from cell phones in schoolyards is eclipsing actual, physical activity and play, and at increasingly young ages.

“…Competition from technology (television, computers, and video games) for recess and free play time is contributing to a rapidly growing incidence of obesity, diabetes, early signs of heart disease, and poor fitness levels of children” (New, Cochran, 2008, p. 644). Simply put, children are not as physically active as they used to be, generally speaking, and the child today who eats foods heavy with fats and sugars is not burning them off as children of previous decades did. Here, too, social cognition plays its role. Even more so than adults, children are susceptible to being influenced by observed behaviors. They do not yet have the guiding mechanisms of the adult and are famously more likely to be swayed by what their peers do. The cycle then sustains itself, even as the child who may perhaps want to get involved in a physical activity sees that his friends and schoolmates are, not only not so inclined, but busy with video games or texts. This then becomes to him the behavior to emulate, and poor fitness and obesity is frequently the result for all.

Corrective Measures

It is encouraging to note that all of the factors above are modifiable behaviors. The very recentness of the trend in childhood obesity, in fact, is helpful in determining how altered social cognition elements can decrease it. The more modern a trend, the less deeply rooted it must be.

There is an irony implicit in the modern protectiveness of parents over their children in regard to safeguarding them from external dangers. Aware and watchful, these same parents enable unhealthy diet behaviors within the children they are so eager to protect from harm, and chiefly because the watchfulness ends at the perimeters of the child himself. This concern must be focused on the child more, in a manner that places the parent in the role of a primary social model. By expressing interest and taking an active part in promoting healthier eating, the parent then modifies the behaviors infused from the outside world, and through media. The parent must establish themselves as the greater authority to be emulated, beyond the imagery and attractions at the child’s hand.

So, too, would increased familial physical activity give the child a pursuit who would find fun and interesting, as well as socially validating. This is no mysterious solution: “Enhancing physical activity through increasing active behaviors or decreasing sedentary behaviors offers a promising approach for the treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity” (Cameron, Norgan, and Ellison, 2006, p. 52).

In diffusing the impact of media, in encouraging and participating in physical activity with the children, and with a greater attention paid to the nutrition available, the parent is the best candidate for creating a social cognition model to combat the child’s obesity.

References    

Brown, J. E., Isaacs, J. S., and Krinke, U. (2007.) Nutrition Through the Life Cycle. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Cameron, N., Norgan, N. G., and Ellison,G. T. H. (2006.) Childhood Obesity: Contemporary Issues, Volume 44. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Davies, D. (2010.) Child Development: A Practitioner’s Guide. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Kunkel, D. (2008.) Media Messages and Public Health: A Decisions Approach to Content Analysis. New York, NY: Routledge.

New, R. S., and Cochran, C. (2008.)  Early Childhood Education: O-Z. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.