Life Expectancy of U.S. Children Cut Short

For the first time in written history, the next generation will not live longer than their parents. It is the norm for, as medicines, safety precautions, and the health sciences improve, the next generation to have a longer life expectancy than their parents, if only by a small amount. It's not unreasonable for the life expectancy to remain the same from one generation to another if there has not been any major medical or health-related breakthroughs. However, it's completely unheard of for kids to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. The decrease in life expectancy can be attributed to growing health concerns, including diseases such as Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, heart conditions and joint deterioration. These diseases, previously considered to be sicknesses prevalent in adults, have been diagnosed more and more often in children in recent years. The culprit: obesity. According to research, childhood obesity will contribute to a two to five year decrease in life expectancy in the current generation. Environment, culture, and genetics all play a role in the spike in the potentially life-threatening condition.
Genetics can be one of the contributing factors to obesity. If one parent is obese, a child has a 50 percent likelihood of being obese, while if both parents are obese, that skyrockets to 80 percent. Unfortunately, 80 percent of obese children between the ages of 10-15 continue to be obese at age 25. In regards to environmental factors, the earlier obesity develops in children, the more severe it tends to be as an adult because we develop habits at an early age. The earlier the habits are developed, the more likely it is that those habits, good or bad, will follow us into adulthood. For example, if at the age of 8, you go to McDonald's for lunch every single day, there is a solid chance that at the age of 40, you will be spending your lunch breaks at McDonald's. The current United States culture puts an emphasis on fast food and giant portions: super-size french fries, 7-11 Big Gulps, a 12-pack of Oreos, all of these foods are eaten by kids on a daily basis, allowing them to consume thousands of extra calories, wheelbarrows of sugar, pounds of trans-fat, and heaps of genetically engineered products. Culturally, the U.S. just doesn't create a health conscious environment for children to develop healthy habits with. Sugary drinks (soda, chocolate milk, fruit punch, etc.), unhealthy school lunches/snacks, excessive advertising of unhealthy foods, a deficit in physical activity to balance out overeating, an increase in prices of healthy foods, and growing portion sizes are all contributing factors to the obesity epidemic. If we don't start putting health higher on the list of priorities, the life expectancy of future generations will only continue to drop.