Popular Book Annotations

Smith, J C. Understanding Childhood Obesity. Understanding health and sickness series. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

Smith argues that obesity is a slow process that doesn’t happen overnight, but instead can begin with bad habits learned in childhood. This book is intended for teachers, parents, families, and health providers of children to learn what causes obesity in, children, health problems that result from it, and how to teach healthy practices. Approximately five million children and adolescents are considered to be obese. This book is very relevant to the research I’ve been doing because it discusses causes and preventions of obesity and it also aims at entire families to become involved in understanding and preventing severe weight gain.

Koplan, Jeffrey, Catharyn T. Liverman, and Vivica I. Kraak. Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press, 2005.

The authors of this book discuss ways that will help prevent obesity in young children and how they work. Social, environmental, medical, and other dietary factors are responsible of the increase of children with obesity. Not only is information presented on how to prevent obesity, but there are also promising interventions that would reverse the epidemic; for example, implementing nutritional regulations for all food and beverages sold in schools. This source is very relevant to my research on causes and preventions of childhood obesity, but also incorporates new ideas of reversing obesity today. Because the authors are a team at the Institute of Medicine, this source is very creditable.