Due to the way life has changed over the last few decades there has been a gen­er­al in­crease in teen obe­si­ty (as well as obe­si­ty in the gen­er­al sense of the en­tire pop­u­la­tion). The war on obe­si­ty is be­gin­ning to cen­tre on ado­les­cents as they grow heav­ier each year. Obe­si­ty is a se­ri­ous health is­sue that has grown to epi­dem­ic sta­tus. Child­hood obe­si­ty is more than just the em­bar­rass­ment of buy­ing larg­er cloth­ing or feel­ing self-con­scious in Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion class. It can lead to life-threat­en­ing prob­lems. To pre­vent an un­healthy adult life, teenagers need to start fight­ing to­day. It has been con­firmed that adult obe­si­ty cas­es be­gin with pae­di­atric obe­si­ty. This leads to the ques­tion of how this prob­lem reached epi­dem­ic sta­tus. Many be­lieve obe­si­ty is a re­sult of be­hav­iour­al habits, but it is im­por­tant to note that there are a num­ber of fac­tors. Weight gain that leads to obe­si­ty is de­fined by the British Co­lum­bia Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion as con­sum­ing a high­er caloric in­take than the body needs, most com­mon­ly by eat­ing a di­et high in fat and calo­ries cou­pled with a lack of ac­tiv­i­ty. This im­bal­ance be­tween calo­ries con­sumed and calo­ries burnt is al­so caused by ge­net­ic, hor­mon­al, and cul­tur­al fac­tors. Re­searchers are con­stant­ly seek­ing rea­sons for obe­si­ty with re­cent stud­ies of me­tab­o­lism, ap­petite and sat­is­fac­tion.

What­ev­er the cause, obe­si­ty is dan­ger­ous and has se­ri­ous con­se­quences. It may cre­ate bone, liv­er, and res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, as well as in­crease the risk for di­a­betes, heart dis­eases, stroke, sleep dis­or­ders and some types of can­cer. Be­ing obese as a child al­so af­fects the tran­si­tion in­to adult­hood, cre­at­ing poor self-es­teem, de­pres­sion, and ear­ly pu­ber­ty. In an at­tempt to stress the sever­i­ty, obe­si­ty should be tak­en as se­ri­ous­ly as any in­fec­tious dis­ease epi­dem­ic. A na­tion­al ef­fort is need­ed to con­trol this epi­dem­ic. Many chil­dren have al­ready faced the dev­as­ta­tions of obe­si­ty. Chil­dren have fall­en vic­tim to the epi­dem­ic. Obe­si­ty is con­trol­lable and even pre­ventable by tak­ing sim­ple steps that in­clude im­prov­ing nu­tri­tion and in­creas­ing phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. Specif­i­cal­ly, it is im­por­tant to eat right. By sub­sti­tut­ing a packed lunch of fruit, sand­wich­es with brown bread, whole grains and juice you will cut back the ex­cess calo­ries that the teenagers are de­vour­ing by pur­chas­ing their lunch from the lo­cal food chains, school cafe­te­rias, shops and oth­er fast food restau­rants. This sub­sti­tu­tion should be done for each meal and no meals should be skipped and made in­to a fast food meal if the teenagers are se­ri­ous about los­ing the weight that they have gained. This may be dif­fi­cult be­cause many foods de­signed to ap­peal to us have lit­tle or no health ben­e­fits and are high in calo­ries.

Al­so, they need to lim­it the time spent watch­ing TV, play­ing video games, BBM-ing friends and even dri­ving. They need to try to be more phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive. Young chil­dren should en­gage in at least 30 min­utes of rig­or­ous phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty dai­ly and at least 60 min­utes of mod­er­ate phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. There are school sport pro­grammes, gyms and oth­er sport and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties in and around every neigh­bour­hood which can be used by every teenag­er and adult. Many of these ac­tiv­i­ties are free and many sports are al­so free to get start­ed such as run­ning, walk­ing or swim­ming. If you're cur­rent­ly in­ac­tive, grad­u­al­ly in­crease ac­tiv­i­ty. Don't fo­cus on weight but on healthy choic­es. Obe­si­ty is an im­por­tant is­sue for teens. When faced with a climb up the stairs or a ride in the el­e­va­tor, take the stairs. And when crav­ing some­thing sweet don't reach for a pas­try, pick up an ap­ple in­stead. To change the course of this epi­dem­ic, so­ci­ety must change, and the change be­gins with you. There is no need for teenagers to be idle and over­weight just be­cause so­ci­ety has made life eas­i­er for them. By in­flu­enc­ing your lifestyle you are help­ing to re­duce the chance of teen obe­si­ty. This will help you get health­i­er and de­vel­op good habits for the fu­ture.

Shan­ta Dookran

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent,

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine