Childhood Obesity is an ailment where a child is severely overweight for their height and their age. Childhood obesity is linked to a laundry list of horrible conditions that can affect people for the rest of their life. The 3 biggest problems associated with childhood obesity are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. In addition, childhood obesity has been linked to cardiovascular disease, asthma, sleep disorders, eating disorders, and some forms of cancer. These used to be barely noticeable in children until this century, where advertising for fast food chains have spiked, and the level of physical demand for youth has significantly dropped. Most of these are problems people should be worrying about later in life, and now are young generation is having to deal with it which makes them unable to do things in the future and can really hurt their lifestyle.
The rate of childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the CDC, the number of obese children has tripled since the 1970's. The CDC compared the results of its annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2014 showed that obesity rates increased from 13.4% in children to 17.4% in children over this 15 year span, and rates keep multiplying and getting higher. This is not even the worst of it though. The same study’s highest age group 12-19 increased to a whopping 20% by 2014. Childhood obesity is on the rise very rapidly and it is shown to be detrimental to the lives of our youth.