Body mass index (BMI) is a measure used to determine childhood overweight and obesity. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines childhood obesity as “… a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children and teens of the same age and sex. BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. For children and teens, BMI is age- and sex-specific and is often referred to as BMI-for-age. A child’s weight status is determined using an age- and sex-specific percentile for BMI rather than the BMI categories used for adults. This is because children’s body composition varies as they age and varies between boys and girls. Therefore, BMI levels among children and teens need to be expressed relative to other children of the same age and sex. In today’s world we have faced and continue to face the epidemic of obesity in people of all ages but more so in children.”

Childhood obesity affects all races and ethnic backgrounds. According to Shannon Marks “In the United States, 18 percent of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 are obese, 20 percent of kids aged 6 to 11 are obese and 10 percent of children aged 2 to 5 years old are obese. Children who are overweight are much more likely to become overweight adults if they do not change their dietary and exercise patterns. Weight problems are one of the easiest medical conditions to recognize, but treating it is proving difficult.” And we took to asking a fellow Dolphin, Russell Egan ‘18, what he thought and he says, “Well with childhood obesity, a lot of the places are food deserts where this occurs. So I think we need more food markets in those places that are typically more underprivileged. And I also think that people need to like, on the nutrition labels, they don’t have the percentages of the daily values for things like sugar and that is something that obviously causes a lot of obesity, so I think that should be put into the labels and I just think children at an earlier age should be more educated about what to eat.”

We need to think of our food as medicine for our body. It has the power to prevent and cure disease!  Dr. Mark Hyman, MD explains, “nutrition is a therapeutic tool that most practitioners never learned in medical school.” But food also has the power to make us very ill if we’re eating the wrong things. The food we eat sends information to our genes and largely affects what happens in our bodies. And most of the time the answers to our health issues lie in the stuff we’re putting on our fork. Another fellow Dolphin by the name of Monika Henry ‘17, gave us her thoughts on what we should eat, “I think America should start feeding us fresh food and it should be healthy, instead of feeding us this fake food from places such as McDonald’s and genetically modified food and things of that nature.”

Being that he is the coach of the Boys’ Basketball Team we took to asking the coach what he thought on childhood obesity. Considering that he helps fight against childhood obesity by running his practices almost everyday and giving them vigorous workouts that are sure to keep them in shape. According to Coach Slaughter he said,“Childhood Obesity. Well I think really that a couple of things need to happen, I think that we as adults have to really monitor what we feed our children because a lot of the foods that we feed our children today are filled with a lot of preservatives and a lot of different things that are not good, different additives that we probably should stay away from. We need to start eating more healthy, eating more green vegetables and less starch and all of the sugars and allow our children to eat more natural foods. I think the other thing that many of us has failed to do is because of the influx of video games and often times, unfortunately, in inner cities crime, our kids don’t get out and do enough physical activity, and as a result of that they become a lot more lazy, a little less active and as a result of THAT, then they don’t have an opportunity to work muscles and parts of the body that otherwise they would work. I think once you talk about those couple of things then, they would go a long way to help eradicate the horrific situation that is childhood obesity.”

On the other it’s actually some people who feel indifferent about the issue of childhood obesity being that they are experiencing it or have experienced it. We ask junior, Diondre Sweezer ‘18, how he felt because once upon a time he was a “fat kid” himself and he said  “I used to be a fat kid and then now I glo’d up. Simple.” So it is possible to break away from the “disease”. Another student, Royon McCoy ‘17, who knows about being “fat” first hand said “ I feel like nothing should be done about childhood obesity, because I’m fine. You have a choice to eat what you want so it’s on you at the end of the day.”

As you can see childhood obesity is a very controversial topic that is viewed differently amongst different people big or small. It will always be a problem until people actually put up an effort to eradicate it completely.