Mrs. Abrams' Virtual Language Arts Class

Serious health problems and peer pressure can occur if a person is a teenager.
15% of teenagers are overweight. All though many teens cause their own obesity, many were born with it. Obesity is an excessive accumulation of body fat that results from the storage of excess food energy in the body’s fat cells. Since 1999 overweight teens have increased from 11% to 14%. Fortunately there is hope for these teenagers....
What is the Description?
Many people don't know what is healthy for their height and weight as a teenager.
160 pounds for a person that is 5'9" is healthy. 25% of teenagers are obese or at risk of being it in the United States. Obesity is when you store excess food energy in the body's fat cells and gain pounds of weight. If you are a teenager and you are over 30% body fat that is considered overweight or obese. Though they do, most teens shouldn't fret about their weigh, because many teens were born over weight, they still think that they let them selves go and wish there was a way to lose the excess body fat.

What are the Causes?
"What causes obesity"? It might be from eating too much or overeating. Sometimes it might be a lack of exercise. Snack foods can do a lot of damage to the body if you eat too much of them. If there are a lot of calories and fat taken in weight will not be lost, in fact weight might even be gained! Low-self esteem might make weight be gained without even eating food. Excess body fat is gained around hips and stomach, or it might be from peer pressure from school. For a teenager, school can really be a giant pain. With their peers calling them names like "fat" and saying "go drink a Slim-Fast" it doesn't help them any with their problems. Many teens parents are getting divorces and it will hurt the teen a lot, physically in weight gain and mentally if their parents split up.
What are the effects?
"So what’s the problem''? It causes an extremely high blood pressure to be at risk. Some teens may turn to an awful way of salving their problems with smoking. Smoking can cause an even larger risk of high blood pressure. Many teens have low self-esteem because people make fun of them because they are fat. If they feel stressed they might commit suicide! Speaking of death, Obesity can and will cause premature death. Obesity can cause type-2 diabetes, pediatric hypertension, coronary heart disease, and clogged arteries. Type-2 diabetes is diabetes that is cause by basically being over weight. Coronary heart disease is when your heart gives up because it has been working too hard. Some of these things might even result in nursing homes.
What’s the Solution?
There is hope for teenage obesity! There are some simple and easy ways to lose the weight and there are some drastic ways. Basically, just start eating healthier. Eat fruits and vegetables instead of potato chips and hamburgers. Try to cut back a little on the fat intake. Also, cut back on the calories too. "How do I know where to find the fat and calories and the fat?”. Look on the back of the box under Nutrition Facts. The other way to shed the weight is by exercising. Get into an exercise group. Try doing aerobics and yoga. Aerobics can get a work out that will make the body a skinny body and maybe have a little muscle. Yoga is a combination of meditating and stretching that will help lose weight and calm the mind. Most teens love sports. Sports are a good way to have fun and exercise at the same time. Many teens watch plastic surgery shows on Television, and they all say I got gastric by-pass and look at what a great job it did! Gastric by-pass is a procedure where they staple your stomach closed. So instead of your stomach being the size of a football, it will be the size of an egg. For many teens it's a bad idea to get gastric by-pass at their age. The other way few teens lose their weight drastically and unhealthily is by crash dieting. This is were they do not eat at all or they shove their finger down their throat and through up whatever the just ate.

Obesity can give serious damage to a person’s body and the way it functions. Many teens are disappointed with their-selves for getting the way they are. Some teens that are fit don't realize that they could be harming obese teens, too. Many teens don't know that there is hope for their disorder. They can go out and exercise. Or go out and start eating healthy. You can get serious health problems as an obese teen. In conclusion, teenage obesity is a huge problem, but there is a solution for the problem thankfully.
Work-Sited
3
N/A. Childhood Obesity.1987.1/16/06.www.kidssource.com/kidsource/content2/obesity.html
4
Dr. McKusic, Victor A. Understanding Childhood Obesity. Jackson, MS. University Press of Mississippi: 1999.
3
Fitness and wellness week Editors. "More of American Children and Teens are Overweight". Adolescent Health.3/31/2001:6.7
2
N/A. Teenage obesity. 4/7/03. 1/18/06/www.departmentds.edu/owl/_disk2/ 00000017.htm
1
Vask, Peter D. "Obesity". Academic American Enclopedia. 1995.