Missing fathers, swelling waistlines
By Nicole M King, Family Edge:
“Childhood obesity is no longer the preserve of wealthy nations,” according to a Newsweek story out this week. “There are more overweight and obese children in the developing world, in terms of absolute numbers, and an upward trend is evident.”
The story comes on the heels of the final report, presented January 25, of The World Health Organization’s Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, established in 2014 to propose interventions to this alarming global problem. The Commission declared that “no single intervention can halt the rise of the growing obesity epidemic.” Rather, concerted government AND societal efforts are required to ensure that “children and their parents have appropriate knowledge about nutrition, have access to affordable healthy foods and participate in physical activity.”
According to Newsweek, “The report includes six sets of recommendations and also outlines the required actions from governments, international agencies and civil society, including the private sector.” But research indicates that if they really want to combat childhood obesity, “governments, international agencies and civil society” would do well to take a hard look at their cultural views and legal statutes surrounding marriage.
The New Research – Missing fathers, swelling waistlines
| With good reason, public-health officials have spared no effort in combatting the epidemic in childhood obesity, typically by advocating dietary reforms. If they attend to a study recently completed in Denmark, however, they may realize that they need to direct their energies in a new way. For this new Danish study makes it quite clear that children are physiologically prone to obesity if they are born in a fatherless home.
Completed by an international team of scholars from the University of Kansas in the United States and from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, this new study focuses on the way parental separation before the birth of a child affects that child’s likelihood of becoming overweight or obese. The researchers explain, “Early parental separation may be a stress factor causing a long-term alteration in the [child’s] hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis activity possibly impacting on the susceptibility to develop[ing] overweight and obesity.” |
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
