Overweight children in western society has increased

IELTS Writing Task 2 with sample answer.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

The percentage of overweight children in western society has increased by almost 20% in the last ten years.

Discuss the causes and effects of this disturbing trend.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.


Sample Answer:
In the past ten years, we have seen an escalating trend in the rate of childhood obesity in the western society. The terrifying fact is that it has increased by almost 20% in the last decade. In many circles, it is considered as an epidemic. Several reasons, such as fast food instead of healthy meals and modern lifestyle could be attributes as the causes for this problem. However, childhood obesity may have several complications for child’s physical, emotional, and social well-being.

In general, the overall lifestyle causes the childhood obesity. Today in the western world, children lead a different lifestyle than ever before. They uses car and bus ride instead of walking to and from school. In the most cases, after school sports and gym have been discarded and children spend their afternoons by watching TV, playing video games or surfing Internet. On the top of that, parents are now terribly busier than ever before and they have almost no time for preparing meals. Consequently, children eat fewer home-cooked meals. So, they are deprived of well-balanced diet and very often there is no vegetable on the plate. Actually, in western society children rely on junk foods which cause obesity to a great extent. Modern lifestyle, thus, hindrances the burning of calories on the one hand and deposits more calories from junk or rich foods on the other hand.

However, childhood obesity is causing a broad of health issues. These include type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, asthma, early puberty or menstruation, sleep disorders and so forth. There are also social and emotional complications. Obese children are more susceptible to low self-esteem and bullying, behavior and learning problems, depression, etc.

To wrap up, in western world, children are likely to be obese because of their lifestyle. Obesity causes several severe diseases. We have to curb the obesity problem in order to get a healthier nation. That is why we need small but permanent changes in our eating habits and physical activities.