Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

In our original survey results written up here, we didn’t included the open-ended responses to question 3: How concerned are you about childhood obesity as a community issue?

Here are the reasons parents gave for their answer:

1. It seems to be more common occurrence in the kids I see
2. parents that neglect their kids’ health are doing them harm
3. The prevalence of childhood obesity is on the rise and many of the proposed ’solutions’ I hear about in the media I think are only ‘Band-Aid’ measures.
4. The illness and lack of quality of life for those that are obese and the cost to society in medical support
5. I guess my kids are OK so it does not become an issue with me
6. National Healthcare burden.
   Improper unhealthy diet, excessively reliant on processed foods.
7. I don’t want the average Australian to become like the overweight average American.
8. Wellbeing of children is an important issue, making sure they develop good habits and good lifestyles
9. Unhealthy kids lead to all sorts of health issues in adult life. The community bears the brunt of this and not just in terms of cost. activity should be encouraged - just like us old folks did when we were young
10. I think so many of society’s health problems - diabetes, heart disease, cardiovascular disease are linked to kids’ health. It seems to be getting worse here in America, especially in minority communities.
11. Leads to earlier onset of health issues for obese children.
    Lowers self-esteem, they may not engage in healthy relationships due to self-consciousness of their size.
12. I don’t really think there is an issue regarding obesity as such. I don’t know may children that come under this category. In fact I think there maybe a stigma and kids know that it’s not nice to be fat. And if anything among the teenagers the issue is being thin.
13. It seems to be a growing problem, which will impact on the children’s heath later in life
14. it’s becoming a major issue
15. It will mean a huge cost to the community in the future when children develop health problems related to a lifetime of obesity later on.
16. I would like to see more kids with higher self esteem and succeed in life. I believe healthier kids are happier kids.
17. You see more and more younger kids being obese or overweight, which shocks me a bit.
18. Long term health of society as a whole. Cost on the health system could be reduced
19. It comes down to parents taking responsibility for what their children eat and the exercise they get.
20. physical health consequences
    mental and emotional health issues related to being overweight
21. As a teacher I see children who are very unfit and making poor food choices. School canteen provides some healthy options but still serves fast food and drinks.
22. My work in the field of health has highlighted the major impact that an increasingly obese society has on social, health and financial issues.
23. If children do not know how to manage their weight they will grow up to have health problems as adults - and it will adversely affect their adult lives as well as provide a huge drain on society.
24. Health and well being of future generations.
25. Because this an issue that affects all of our society
26. Observations of children in our circle of acquaintance and of those in our community. Aspects of their nutrition and activity levels
27. Fat kids > fat adults
28. There are so many in-door games that children have these days. They are more concerned about playing video games on their Wii or Computer that going outside to play is like being punished for them
29. Too many Tim-Tams
30. Would put more pressure on our Health systems
31. Influence on my kids.
32. Issues of peer pressure, negative ideas of self which I don’t think are good.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 5:04 pm and is filed under survey, childhood obesity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.