Literature Review: Childhood Obesity in the African American Families - Term Paper Example

They have based their research on the primary data obtained from 1,008 obese and 2,715 control AA children. They were all recruited from the Greater Philadelphia area from 2006 to 2007. Blood was drawn from all the participants, and DNA was extracted for genotyping. The result from this research has shown that obesity has no apparent association with SNP in the children (Grant et al., 2009). Obesity is considered a strong factor contributing towards cardiovascular disease (CVD). In this article Sharma et al. (2012) have presented the results obtained from 121 AA children between the age of 9 and 11 of whom 56 were boys and 65 were girls. Their Body Mass Index (BMI) was more than 85 percentile. Their body height, weight, and waist circumference were measured, and different cholesterols were examined using the vertical auto profile (VAP) cholesterol method. The result showed that many of the children had their plasma lipoprotein concentrations in the normal range. Girls belonging to this sample of obese children were in their advanced stage of puberty and as such had more body fatness than the boys. However, there was no difference in the lipoprotein concentration between the boys and the girls. These children were engaged in lifestyle modification program aimed at reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. The research proved that therapeutic lifestyle helped levels of Lipoprotein (a) and High density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) to rise which causes Total Cholesterol (TC) and BMI to decrease. The authors have concluded that Lp(a) is not an independent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases in AA children (Sharma et al., 2012). From a study conducted it has been seen that 21% of American children of 4 year old suffering from obesity are African-Americans. Patients who have type 1 diabetes (T1D) tend to become obese, and diagnosis of type 2 diabetes (T2D) is increasing becoming possible among younger children as low as eight years old. Through this article, Keller et al. (2012) have put forward the results of medical records of 227 AA and 112 Hispanic American patients between the age of 2 and 18 diagnosed as T1D or T2D. Results show that 72% of T2D patients are female and 43% of TID patients are female. It is seen that obesity is a strong predictor of T2D in AA youths. While in the AA the female has the more possibility of T2D, in the Hispanic Americans BMI z-score is the strongest cause of T2D. From this the authors have concluded that maximum distinction between the two types of diabetes can be made by testing on race or ethnic specific patients (Keller et al., 2012). Childhood obesity is increasingly becoming a matter of concern more because pre-diagnosis for timely intervention is becoming difficult as the associated metabolic syndrome is different for different ethnic groups. This article by DeBoer (2011) is concerned with T2D’s association with obesity. It is more widely seen in AA and Hispanics. Because the African Americans have low dyslipidemia, they are less likely to be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. The most common cause of obesity is T2D mellitus (T2DM) which is characterized by insulin resistance resulting in elevated blood sugar level. T2DM which is a major contributor of CVD is largely found in the AA. For preventive measure improvements clinical care is needed for the children to resist obesity because once obese these children are likely to remain the same as adults ...Show more