High School Student Obesity and Fitnessgram Assessments Essay

High School Student Obesity and Fitnessgram Assessments - Essay Example 6). At present, one in six children in America between 6 and 17 years of age are obese because of lack of sufficient amount of physical exercise (American Psychological Association, 2011). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011), 33.8 percent of the American population is obese while the number of obese children between 2 to 19 years old is 12.5 million which shows that 17 percent of the total population of children in United States is obese. According to Miller (2004), childhood obesity is a very serious medical disease that decreases the life of its victims by 5 to 20 years. It is due to this reason that childhood obesity has become a serious issue for almost every country just like the issues of sustainable economic development and global warming. A decrease of 5 to 20 years in the life of a person is something that should be taken seriously. â€Å"In older adults, obesity exacerbates declines in physical performance, leads to frailty, impaired quality of life, and increases the nursing home admissions† (Villareal as cited in Dryden, 2011, para. 4). An important fact to consider is that childhood obesity also affects emotions of children along with physical health (Marcus & Baron, n.d.). For example, overweight children are often made fun of by their peers. Overweight children remain behind in competitions because they do not feel comfortable facing their peers who make fun of them. Moreover, they also get comparatively poor grades in exams because of less interaction with peers and teachers. Some children even become socially excluded. These negative marks on the psychology of a child become more alarming as time passes, and the child becomes completely unable to interact properly with the society as a responsible adult. Lack of physical exercises significantly contributes to obesity in children. Obesity is a problem that occurs because of excessive amount of fat stored in the body.