U.S. Teens’ Obesity Rate Worst in 15-Nation Study – Health Article
The article I chose to review an article about teen obesity. This article speaks of how teenagers in the United States have higher rates of obesity than those in 14 other countries, such as France and Germany. A
study of nearly 30,000 youngsters ages 13 and 15 found 15 percent of girls and nearly 14 percent of boys were obese, and 31 percent of girls and 28 percent of boys were more modestly overweight. These findings are based on school surveys given to teenagers in the 15 countries in 1997 and 1998. The study was led by Inge Lissau, a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was published in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The heaviest countries, based on info from 15-year-olds, included Greece, Portugal, Israel, Ireland and Denmark. This article also contained other various facts about obesity.
Obesity is an important topic in America right now. Some researchers call it a epidemic and a disease. I feel it is important but they are slightly exaggerating the seriousness. I know its really serious when your highly obese but not so much when its not so bad. I my self used to be obese but if it was a disease I probably wouldn’t have lost so much weight. Sometimes I think they hype it up to have more news, because on fast news days they don’t talk about it as much. Altogether I feel this article is useful in informing people about obesity in youths.
This article could have talked about the health precautions of obesity. It would to been nice to hear about the children that have high blood pressure do to being over weight. Asthma is another serious illness caused by obesity that could have been discussed in the article. They also could have added percentages for the amount of children with these health precautions. It also wouldn’t have hurt if they added ways to fight obesity. Such as different types of exercise programs and diets. With a few slight changes this article could really be a help to someone.
http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/academic/agec220/CurrentEvents.html