This was one of my first essay. Any suggestions? Is too long for the TOEFL i know 
Practicing that already.
Child Obesity
Childhood obesity is becoming more common in Canada, The US, and many other countries around the world. Because of all the sugar, fast food, and unhealthy food choices our children are in a great danger of becoming overweight or obese. Genetics and family environment plays an important role in childhood obesity as well. In many cases are the care takers who influence this behavior in their own children by not knowing any better or just not being able to make healthy living a priority, this is more seen in low income families. The percentage of childhood obesity is expected to raise more and more as the years go by.
The food choices for kids this days are not very healthy not only at home, but also at school. All they have to eat is package food, process, or fast food. There are many controversies in schools today, many parents are protesting, because of the lunch choices in some schools. Some of them are serving the kids fries, hot dogs, hamburgers, and macaroni and cheese. We can not deny that the kids love this food, and if it was their choice they would eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some schools as well as some parents are at fault for the kids being overweight, or obese. In many homes the parents are the first ones who are overweight, and as a result, they influence their children with bad eating habits. Even though they are responsible for their children health. Their kitchen is filled with sweets of all kinds, candies, ice cream, cookies, soft drinks, who are full of sugar and color. A can of pop, for example, has forty grams of sugar, that’s about ten teaspoon of sugar. In many cases, a child can drink up to two or more soft drinks a day. Parents choose not to cook healthy food, it is easier to go out and buy it ready, frozen or get delivery, maybe because they work so hard and have no time to cook, but honestly if you really wanted your child to eat healthy you would manage the time and cook healthy meals, and more importantly try to have at least one meal with your child. It is not very hard to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and encourage your kids to try them. I’m not saying that kids should never have a candy, a drink or ice cream, but everything in moderation. Obesity also comes from children who are not physically active. At school physical activity is encourage, but it is to the student to actually implement them and if parents reinforceted the work of teacher and educators obesity would not be as high.
Obesity has many complications and consequences in the lives of those kids. Many of them, at a very young age already present health problems as a result, of bad eating habits. For instance, high blood pressure, type two diabetics, liver disease, bone problems, sleep disorder (known as sleeping apnea), and eating disorder, an example is that many kids as young as 7 years old already present this problem by eating to get rid of stress, and problems, or to get rid of sadness. Unfortunately, overweight kids get bullied, laughed at in school, and this is why they have poor selfsteem. In the same way, this young kids grow to be adults, and as a result, of being overweight their health problems increases. Overweight children are twice as likely to be obese when they grow up, than children who aren’t overweight. This means that in adulthood, they will be at an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, dementia,and certain types of cancers. The risk of health problems increases the more overweight you become. Statistics shows that 26% of Canadian children of ages between two and seventeen are currently overweight or obese. Furthermore, 1/3 of normal overweight 20 year olds will become overweight within 8 years, in the other hand, 1/3 of overweight 20 year old will become obese within 8 years. Therefore, if this rate continues in twenty years we can expect 70 % of people from thirty five to forty years in Canada to be overweight or obese.
In conclusion obesity is a very important matter in our society, specially when there are so many kids at risk. There are many thing we can do to help this kids overcome obesity. Sometimes the parents need a little education on this matter, a big percentage of parents in Canada are younger than thirty and have no real understanding of how important is to be healthy. There has to be some consistency in which the parents can be educated as well as the children. Schools should start implementing new rules, and making healthier lunch choices for the students a priority. A healthy diet is very important in everyones life, they should try to make sure their children eat the right amount of vegetables, fruits, grains, and have the one hour physical exercise required for the body to work properly. A trip to the park can be very fun for the kids and as simple as it is, a little run can do very good to their health and selfsteam. Parents should always talk to their children about healthier choices, but not making it a big deal to them. Otherwise, this will stay with the child forever, and will not have good consequences. As we can see, families play a very important role in childhood obesity, by influencing the children to eat unhealthy food. It is to the parents and care takers to provide the right food for their children, and make sure they are aware of the consequences of childhood obesity.
TOEFL listening discussions: Which best describes the student’s current activity?