0Elena Morales

8 April. 2009

Sociology 101 - Assignment 1

Dr. Carlos Castro

Obesity in Children of Modern Society

Obesogenic, or Obesity-Supporting Environments

The new generation is constantly being bombarded by the images of food on the

go everywhere they go. As they are traveling down the road from school to home, every

few feet they see a different chain of fast food restaurants; everything from classic

American burgers to express Chinese food. Between these restaurants are convenient

stores that offer candies, sodas, and chips. There are a few supermarkets that carry

produce nutritionists recommend scattered throughout the chains of fatty, calorie packed

food, but compared to a juicy, red apple and a head of broccoli, the soda and chips looks

much more appeasing.

This cause of childhood obesity falls under the sociological perspective due to the

images produced by the mass media that show fast food and sugary drinks as the “hip”

thing to eat and drink. When they see a group of friends eating Taco Bell at 3am after a

night of partying, children will instantly turn to what is considered to be the norm of our

society.

Geographic Location

In addition to the obesity-supporting environment, geographic location is a factor

in what sort of foods are available and accessible to their location. When society thinks
of rural areas, they think of wide open spaces, children running through fields or working

on the farm, and spending more time out side than those children who live in an

urbanized environment. In reality, that sort of lifestyle died out many years ago, and

society is left with children who are isolated from the town. Their school, and a friend’s

house, may be too far away to walk to, and the accessibility to a supermarket is few and

far between. When a person has to drive several miles to the nearest grocery store, they

are not thinking of fresh fruits and vegetables, they are thinking of foods that would be

able to sit on a shelf for a few weeks at a time. This leads to the purchase of processed

foods, and with the isolation comes the sedentary state of children who turn to television

or electronic hand-held devices for sources of entertain.

While geographic location may be a cause of childhood obesity, it is not fully

shaped or influenced by society. The availability of fresh foods to those out in the rural

areas may be affected by society due to cost of both building a supermarket in the area

and the cost of shipping the foods to that location.

Economic Status

The expense of buying fresh, organic foods from stores such as Whole Foods is

too far out of the pocket for most of those struggling with obesity. Obesity has been

recorded to be highest among those of a lower economic status. This is the result of the

massive amounts of cheap fast food joints and inexpensive processed foods, all of which

are packed with calories, fats, and chemicals to preserve the food, in comparison to the

small amount of supermarkets that sell fresh foods at an affordable price. Also, the

poorer community may have both of the parents, or one parent, working one or two jobs

just to be able to pay bills and afford food for their family. These families aren’t thinking
of food items that take too much time to make. They want products that are quick and

easy for their child to make and that will satisfy their child’s stomach. It has also been

shown that low-income communities tend to have fewer recreational areas for children to

play on and burn off the calories they intake from the processed foods.

These two things combined lead to the beginnings of childhood obesity, both of

which are imposed upon individuals by society. Mass media and society solicit healthier

foods to those who are of a median income and can dish out the money for the luxury

priced organic foods, leaving those who can not afford these purchases to buy unhealthy

options for both themselves and their children.

Safety

If we go back to the geographic location as being one of the causes of childhood

obesity, we can look at the case of the urban population. In rural areas, while children

have the one option of staying inside and don’t have the option of walking to school,

parents are mostly unconcerned with the safety of their child if they were play outside. In

urban areas, children who live within close proximity to playgrounds and their schools,

their parents are concerned about the surrounding location and the danger that is hidden

on the streets. Most parents who live in an urban environment say that “they’d rather

have a fat kid than a dead kid” (Walsh, Zhu).

In this situation, society does have a strong influence upon the environment. This

natural fear of a dangerous neighbourhood and the need to protect a child has

unfortunately resulted in obesity among children. Rather than running off excess energy

and calories at a friend’s house or the playground, urban children are now also turning to
the television, video games and hand-held electronics to keep them entertained as they

are protected from outside dangers.

Schools

A school in Los Angeles, California has done nothing to rid their sidewalk of

street vendors who wait patiently for the schoolchildren to be released. They stand on the

side displaying candies, potato chips, and ice cream, all of which are catch the eye of

almost every single elementary student leaving school for the day. While it is against city

ordinance for the vendors to operate near a school, no one has done a thing to get rid of

the situation. A recent study found that obesity among fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-graders

in Los Angeles County’s ten poorest communities was 32% compared with the 8% for

the city’s ten wealthiest communities (Walsh).

Also, in the past several years, public schools have been cutting back on physical

education and introducing many more sugary vending machines into the elementary

school environment. Since children spend much of their time at school and eat up to 50%

of their daily calories at school, several states have been making transformations in the

public school system. Arkansas has completed eliminated junk-food vending machines

from their premises and has added half an hour of daily physical education to the school

curriculum. California followed by banning sugary sodas from public schools. The Pima

tribe of Native Americans in Arizona, have started growing school gardens to supply

cafeterias with fresh vegetables and to reconnect the children to a traditional cuisine.

This trend in improving the quality of health in the new generation can be seen as

a part of the sociological perspective. It’s the cause and effect. When one state begins to

reform the school’s health services and it is broadcasted across the country through the
mass media, other states begin to follow this “trend”, until it eventually spreads to every

possible outlet. Unlike the other social influences passed on by the mass media and

groups, the influence of wanting to improve the health of the new generation is great

alternative to obesity.