Social Theory Approach To Childhood Obesity

Obesity is the health condition in which extra fat is accumulated in body thereby increasing body weight (Small and Aplasca, 2016). Obesity is much more common in children as today’s children are habituated with irregular lifestyles and eating disorder. An individual is considered as obese if his or her body mass index (BMI) is more than 30. In the UK, children are highly vulnerable to obesity. Recent statistical survey in UK shows that, more than 22% of school going children are obese in England and more than 34% of children who start primary school are considered as obese. The database of National Child Measurement Program (NCMP) for England has shown that, during 2017-2018, more than 4.2% children of aged 6 and 2.4% of children in Reception period (aged 4 to 5 years) were diagnosed with high obesity (www.gov.uk, 2019). This essay will discuss the social theory approach in obesity by discussing usefulness and limitation of this approach.

Obesity in children generally occurs due to the unhealthy lifestyles and improper diet (Nolan, 2017). Todays’ children are habituated in late night sleep, late morning rising, delay in having breakfast, preference of junk foods in lunch and lack of proper exercise on regular basis. As mentioned by Branscum et al. (2016), irregular lifestyles are associated with reduced metabolic activities and digestive functions in children that leads to poor digestion of foods and accumulation of excess fats into muscle and tissue. On the other hand, another important cause on child obesity is unhealthy eating as well as poor diet. As mentioned by Small and Aplasca (2016), in todays’ fast paced world, parents are so busy in their daily schedule, that they do not provide proper attention on what their children eat all day. Evidence suggests that, majority of children eat junk foods such as pizza, burger, hot chocolates, frozen chips and sweets, that not only enhance the overall body mass by accumulating excess fats into muscle and tissue cells but also pose adverse impact on overall physical and biological function of these children.

While it comes to evaluate the cause and outcomes of obesity in children social theory approach needs to be mentioned to represent how sociocultural and socioeconomic factors are associated with enhancing vulnerability of children towards obesity. As mentioned by Warin et al. (2016), social theory on obesity believes that, the overall living standard, level of education, family background, family income, easting standard and socioeconomic condition of family are associated with the rising risk of children to be obese. Evidence-based reports mention that, children who reside in the poor socioeconomic community are devoid of proper nutrition, healthy lifestyles, nutritional foods and healthy eating habits which lead to overweight and obesity. As mentioned by Medvedyuk et al. (2018), there are many children residing in the poor communities in the rural and semi-urban areas, who use to take such foods that lack proper proteins, good fats and sufficient carbohydrates but have high amount of saturated unhealthy fats that can enhance the overall body mass. There are many criticisms regarding the social theoretical approaches on obesity. Critics of this theoretical approach mentioned that, in modern era, majority of obese children belongs to rich as well as high profile communities (Huang et al. 2016). Critics also mentioned that, although children residing in the lower economic community are devoid of healthy lifestyles and nutritious foods, they are relatively less affected than that the children belong to high class community due to fact that high society children use to eat junk foods, high cholesterol and fat enriched foods and lack of parental attention (Nazari et al. 2020). The social theory approach on obesity highlights the fact that sociocultural factors are also responsible to make children vulnerable toward obesity

One of the major benefits of social theory approach on obesity is it represents the social factors that are responsible in making children vulnerable to obesity. Social theory of obesity highlight that how the sociocultural and socioeconomic factors impact on food choice, eating behavior, lifestyles and living standard of children that have direct impact on their overall weight gain as well as increased body mass. As mentioned by Chatham and Mixer (2020), social theory assists researchers to evaluate the cause and health outcomes of obesity in children. Evidence suggested that children having obesity have high chances of developing chronic illness such as asthma, cardio vascular disease, respiratory illness, diabetes and pulmonary disorder. Social theory of obesity also describes that these the social factors make potential barriers towards health and social care services provided to the children to protect them from obesity (Barrera et al. 2016). In many communities, the traditional sociocultural construction on obesity poses adverse impact on healthy mindset of parent, therefore making them highly insincere about the harmful impact of obesity on the mental, physical and emotional wellbeing of children. Social theory represents that how the definition of health is misinterpreted among many parents that makes them think that their children will be called healthy if only their weight increases consistently. As mentioned by Arteaga et al. (2017), the sociocultural trends make parents unaware about how they make their children vulnerable toward different chronic disease by meeting their demand of different junk and fat enriched foods. Evidences have suggested that, the elimination of obesity from society can only be possible by transforming current sociocultural perspective of obesity into positive as well as healthy thoughts that can assist parents to teach their children healthy lifestyles, proper eating habits and good food choices.

Limitations of the social theory on obesity is it emphasizes on social factors and ignore biological, physical and psychological factors that are also responsible for developing obesity in children. As mentioned by Monaghan et al. (2018), evidence-based report suggested that there are many children who despite having healthy lifestyles and healthy eating habits suffer from obesity. Biomedical model explained that, children can have several biological imbalances inside the body that lead to improper functions of different internal organs that lead to accumulation of excess fat into muscles as well as tissues. Recent clinical intervention of obesity has mentioned that, children who suffer from obesity can have biological dysfunction that is associated with poor absorption and digestion of fat and protein enriched food. Therefore, the excess fats that are not digested properly can be accumulated into cells for future use thereby increasing body mass and chances of obesity in children.

From the above mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that, obesity is a health condition in which excess fat is stored into tissues and muscle cells. Children are more vulnerable to obesity than any other age group due their unhealthy food choices, irregular lifestyles, unhealthy living standard, eating disorder and too much junk food consumption. Social theory of obesity is highly useful in evaluating the social factor that are associated with cause and health outcomes of obesity. On the other hand, one limitation of social theory is that it fails to represent biological, psychological and physical aspects that are lying behind developing obesity in children. Therefore, if society needs to protect children from this health condition it needs to improve not only social, economic and environment framework but also improve the psychological, mental and biological system of children by fostering healthy habits and proper diet in them.

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