In the busy western world of North America, nobody takes the time to watch their weight. Most people are occupied with the task of entertaining themselves, especially children. North American kids today are lucky to have all the amusement and food they crave while kids in Europe are absorbed in sports. Nearly all of the leisure activities of North American children, however, do not involve much physical action. Unfortunately, this has led obesity to become one of the greatest threats to the health of youth in North America. Due to over consumption of food, lack of physical activity, and inactive free time, obesity rates in North American children are higher than children in Europe.

Fast and cheap food items that increase obesity in children are easily available to North American students compared to European students. North American schools are surrounded by fast food restaurants. For example, my high school, East York C.I. has many restaurants in the area, and the most frequently used ones are fast food. Stores like Diamond Corner, Tim Horton's, and Eden Chinese Restaurant are almost always busy at lunchtime with endless orders of pizza, French fries, pop, and burgers from East York C.I. pupils. Even in the East York C.I. cafeteria, where healthy choices are expected, contain these same fatty meals. On the other hand, almost all kids in Europe have a balanced diet. At lunchtime, instead of eating junk food, they eat their home-made lunch, so most European countries, like Norway, have a low obesity rate. The 2009 OECD Health data confirms "the obesity rate in Norway, based on self-reported data, stood at 9% in 2005, up from 5% in 1995, but still 4th lowest among those OECD countries supplying data" (OECD Health Data). Since the obesity rate in Norway is low, this record proves that there are more obese people in North America than in Europe. North American children are gaining way more weight than they need to by consuming a lot of fast foods, which is increasing the fat in their already inactive little bodies.

Kids in North America do not spend as much time being active as European kids, and it adds more to their obesity rate. Physical education, also known as gym class, is probably the most difficult course for obese students to do well in. Overweight North American children struggle to keep up with their healthy European counterparts. Justin, a 105 lb ten year old Canadian preteen, always comes in last place during laps and sprints at his school, Selwyn Public School. His gym teacher, Ms. Jeffrey, instructs her students to do push ups everyday, but Justin fails at every attempt. However, students in European countries, such as Denmark are highly involved in physically active games. A European study performed by the European Youth Heart Study reported “167 minutes/day for 9-year-olds, [and] 131 minutes/day for 15-year-olds [were spent being physically active]” (Foody). The amount of time these European youths spend playing active games everyday was way more than an hour, which is very high when weighed against North American children, since most kids in North America spend less than half an hour being active. North American youngsters are adding avoidable weight to themselves by not being energetic, and wasting their leisure time.

A popular and modern tradition that has taken over the lives of North American children and added more pounds to their obesity rate is excessive quantities of unnecessary entertainment. Kids in North America arrive home after school, jump on the couch with lots of fatty snacks, and launch their brains into auto pilot mode by watching endless hours of television. Surfing the internet and playing computer games, chatting with and texting friends, and playing video games are some other pointless obsessions that also use up a lot of a North American student’s leisure time. According to the examiners at the Canadian Institute for Health Information, “among overweight children [between] age six to 11, 48 per cent reported spending at least two hours a day in front of a TV or computer” (Talbot). This report verifies that almost half the population of Canadian youngsters wastes their free time staring at a screen without ever thinking about other things they could be doing. Canadian children do not actually gain much positive knowledge from viewing television shows since most of these TV series are filled with fiction and violence, and kids do not willingly watch the news. On the internet, a little Google search is all that is needed to bring thousands of game websites right at the fingertips of kids in Canada. And when they loose interest in these computer games, Canadian youth turn to their online friends to keep them entertained. On the other hand, in European countries, like Norway, a huge percentage of kids play sports. Per Egil Mjaavatn, who works at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, notes that “about 80 percent of all 10 to 11 year-old children in Norway take part in organised sport activities” (Mjaavatn). This statistic shows that almost all the preteens in Norway are physically active, and it helps them stay in shape. The amount of physical action decreases as European children grow older, but it still stays higher than that of North American children.

Seeing as North American schools are bordered by cheap fast foods restaurants, overweight preteens falling short in physical activities like running in gym class, and kids in North America exploiting their leisure time with inactive action like surfing the internet instead of playing sports, it can be concluded that North American children are more obese than European children, since the obesity rate in Norway is low, there is high involvement in physical activity of the youngsters in Denmark, and Europe is greatly involved in sports. North American students need to start eating healthy and being active. There is no more apologies of not having sufficient time, because if the moments of television and computer are eliminated, there will be more than enough time to do physical activities. Obese children should become strong and full of life, which is precisely what they are meant to be.   

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