You can understand where the school is coming from. Childhood obesity has been called one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century.nearly every system in a kid’s body—heart and lungs, muscles and bones, kidneys and digestive tract, as well as the hormones that control blood sugar and puberty—and can also take a heavy social and emotional toll.
What’s even worse, youth who are overweight or obese have substantially higher odds of remaining overweight or obese into adulthood, increasing their risk of disease and disability later in life.This issue is especially bad in the United States. In the 1970s, 5 percent of U.S. children ages 2 to 19 were obese.The prevalence of obesity was 19.7% and affected about 14.
Obesity prevalence was 12.7% among 2- to 5-year-olds, 20.7% among 6- to 11-year-olds, and 22.2% among 12- to 19-year-olds; Obesity prevalence was 26.2% among Hispanic children, 24.8% among non-Hispanic Black children, 16.6% among non-Hispanic White children, and 9.0% among non-Hispanic Asian children.