Advertisement!
Author Information Pack
Editorial Board
Submit article
Special Issue
Editor's selection process
Join as Reviewer/Editor
List of Reviewer
Indexing Information
Most popular articles
Purchase Single Articles
Archive
Free Online Access
Current Issue
Recommend this journal to your library
Advertiser
Accepted Articles
Search Articles
Email Alerts
FAQ
Contact Us
Pediatrics Education and Research

Volume  3, Issue 4, October - December 2015, Pages 155-158
 

Original Article

To Assess Determinants of Impact of Fast Food on the Present Scenario of Childhood Obesity

N.A. Akolkar*, Sunil Mhaske**, Liza Bulsara***

*Associate professor, **professor & head, ***post-graduate, department of Paediatrics PDVVPF`S Medical College, Ahemadnagar Maharashtra.

Choose an option to locate / access this Article:
90 days Access
Check if you have access through your login credentials.        PDF      |
|

Open Access: View PDF

DOI: DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21088/per.2321.1644.3415.3

Abstract

 ‘Eat healthy and live healthy’ is one of the essential requirements for long life. Childhood obesity is a serious epidemic, affecting children across the world. In our country alone, 17% of all children and adolescents are now obese, triple the rate from just a generation ago (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011). Fast food consumption is one potential cause that has received widespread attention. Many researchers have looked at the relationship between fast food and childhood obesity from various angles. Some of these include the influence of family, the media, and the proximity of fast food restaurants to schools and homes. Examining the interrelationships of these angles can lead to a better understanding of the relationship between childhood obesity and fast food, and from this multi-angle viewpoint, we can see that no single aspect is solely to blame. Diseases like coronary artery disease and diabetes mellitus have seen a profound rise in developing countries and such unhealthy junk food consumption is one of the notable factors to its contribution. This global problem of consuming junk food on a large scale and its impact on health needs emphasis and health education which can greatly contribute to its limited consumption and switching over to healthy eating habits for the better living. Aim: To examine the inter-relationship between childhood obesity and fast food & assess the various factor affecting childhood obesity. Objectives: To Examine relationship between childhood obesity and fast food. Materials & Methods: children in various 8 community health centres .Inclusion criteria: Children from 2- 12 years of age. Exclusion criteria: Children with obese parents: “Constitutional obesity”Children with chronic systemic diseases. Result: the characteristics of the 312, Marathis, jains, Bengalis, and Sikhs children whose parents completed the survey. half the children were female. Children ranged from 2 to 12 years of age, 58% were younger than 7. Approximately 2/ 3rd of the children were Gujaratis, Marathis constituted the next largest group (17%). Parents’ education ranged from second grade to a professional school degree, and  (68%) had completed a high school degree (41.7%) or less (26%). Household income ranged from 10,000 - 75,000 per year, and most parents (70%) were in the category of less than 30,000 per year. Income and education differed across ethnicity: Sikhs had significantly lower levels of education than all other participants, and Gujaratis had the highest. Furthermore, Sikhs had the lowest income level, and Gujaratis had the highest.As we expected a high proportion of the children were overweight (23%) or at risk of becoming overweight (14%), which is higher than would be expected for children in this age range. In terms of overweight status across the various ethnic groups, 33% of the Gujarati children, 25% of the children identified as mixed, 18.5% of the Marathi, 18.4% of the child bengali, and 15.4% of the sikh children were overweight. Conclusion: the results of this study show that fast-food influences parents’ behavior with respect to feeding their children. Thus, for a more comprehensive understanding of approaches to reduce childhood obesity and related cardiovascular risk factors, research that assesses the influence of Fast food on children’s eating behaviors and policy debates about food marketing to children should consider parents’s exposure.


Corresponding Author : Liza Bulsara*