Childhood obesity and SSB

While the many other motivational ways of making our country healthier are not working, this may be the push we are looking for. Free gym memberships, weight loss supplements and diets, and plastic surgeries are all not the answer to the obesity problem we face. Ethically, the SSB tax is the correct move for our country.  We cannot keep living with the same unhealthy habits we have recently acquired. Since we are unable to take care of our own health, someone needs to for the sake of our future generations. As the Center for Disease Control reports, in the last 30 years, childhood obesity has more than tripled. Although the reasons of this threefold increase has many causes, such as lack of exercise, there is no doubt a major role player in the addition of weight is due to the bad dietary behaviors of American children. What would the future of America be if we continue to disregard this epidemic of obesity? According to Bellows and Roach, health complications associated with childhood obesity such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, dyslipidemia, and type 2diabetes will plague our children. Additional health complications associated with overweight children include sleep apnea, asthma, and liver damage. Further, overweight children and adolescents are more likely to become obese adults. For example, one study found that approximately 80 percent of children who were overweight at 10 to 15 years old were obese at 25. That statistic is flabbergasting and unacceptable. Having a generation of children that have a cloudy future due to obesity is totally preventable, and it must be prevented. It isn’t fair if we keep allowing our children to consume the amount of calories they are presently. Scientific studies produced by the American Academy of Pediatrics have proven that decreased consumption of SSBs leads to decreased body weight in adolescents. We must prevent them in some way from drinking SSBs since they are a source of the trouble.