Day 4 – Childhood Obesity

Day camp was a little hard for me today. I worked in the height, weight, and BMI station at the elementary school. As we all know, childhood obesity is becoming a huge problem in America. Childhood obesity is more prevalent in minority populations due to factors such as income disparities and lack of access to healthy food and medical services. However, I saw a lot more overweight and obese children than I expected to see at the elementary school. It really hurt me to see children struggling with weight issues so early in life. I was sad to know that for some children, their parents could not do much to help them lose weight because they may not have the money, time, or knowledge to make better food choices. I learned from my clinical instructor that if the children do not adopt better health habits soon they could carry their poor health practices into adulthood and have a much harder time losing weight.

Tonight’s camp was also a hard experience for me. The farmworkers’ quarters were in very bad shape. The outside of the buildings were decrepit. Trash and beer cans were scattered all about and dogs wandered up and down the area. Worst of all is that children lived there. Seeing the condition in which the workers and their families live really made me realize how important what we are doing is. With such poor living conditions, there is no way they could afford to seek medical services. Their work also depends on their health, so being able to know what health condition they are in is very important to them. Though this experience has been exhausting at times, tonight’s camp refreshed my sense of purpose.