A Child’s Right to an Environment That Prevents Obesity: Ethical Considerations

Abstract

The addition of children's rights to the human rights agenda was articulated and organized into specific areas by the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1924 at the League of Nations. Child and adolescent obesity has become a serious and worldwide problem that effects physical and mental development, and risks reduction of expected life expectancy. This article will briefly review the epidemiology of childhood obesity, thereby exploring the burden of the problem and discuss the mandate to act. The various influences upon childhood obesity will be discussed, utilizing an ecological model in which biology, and environment effect behaviors that are either "obesogenic," favoring obesity, or "leptogenic" (from the hormone leptin, which is made in adipose cells), favoring slimness. These factors that influence obesity invoke ethical challenges that include the public health agenda and the clinical care of obese child and adolescent patients. We will then apply the ethical considerations derived from the unique challenge of child obesity to the issue of child rights and discuss the "special protections" needed to combat this modern epidemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)