Behavioral and Psychosocial Factors in Childhood Obesity

Obesity has been recognized as a major public health problem and one of the most important causes of the burden of disease worldwide (Ezzati et al, 2002). Its prevalence has escalated over the last two decades, reaching pandemic levels in the developed countries and also increasing in the developing world (Wang & Lobstein, 2006). In fact, in the newsletter of the World Health Organization/Europe, called The Bridge, published in 2010, it’s stated that “Paradoxically coexisting with under-nutrition, an escalating global epidemic of overweight and obesity – globesity – is spreading over many parts of the world” (p. 11). The pandemic of obesity originated in the United States of America and crossed to Europe and the world’s poorest countries (Prentice, 2006). The obesity phenomenon is observed not only in adults. Despite large differences among countries and regions, a global childhood obesity epidemic has also emerged worldwide. In many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Brazil and China, child overweight is increasing at a faster rate than is adult obesity (Popkin et al, 2006). Of particular concern is the upward trend in countries that have traditionally experienced low rates of overweight (Lissau et al, 2004). In fact, obesity in children and adolescents is well recognized as a major public health concern (Institute of Medicine, 2005) because of alarming trends in the prevalence, severity, and occurrence of adverse health and psychosocial consequences over the life cycle. Compared with the past two decades, the rates of children who are obese has doubled, while the number of adolescents who are obese has tripled. So, in the United States, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES] (Odgen et al, 2010), almost 32% of children and adolescents aged 2–19 years were overweight (Body Mass Index [BMI] at or above 85th percentile), while almost 17% were obese (BMI at or above 95th percentile). NHANES data indicated disparities among racial/ethnic groups, with Hispanic boys and non-Hispanic black girls disproportionately affected by obesity. Childhood obesity also poses a serious problem in Europe. Studies conducted in Scotland (Craig et al, 2010) and England (Stamatakis et al, 2010) showed that in the United Kingdom there is a clear socioeconomic gradient with high prevalence of being overweight and obese in low socioeconomic strata. Mediterranean countries also present high levels of childhood