The Consumer Expenditure Survey, developed by Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), found high preponderation of population’s overweight, varying between 10,8% and 33,8% in different areas of Brazil. The Instituto Nacional de Alimentação e Nutrição (INAN) shows that childhood obesity in the country has reached 16% of the children and according to the Centre for Public Health Nutrition, in the period between 1974 and 1997 the overweight and obesity increased more than three times among children and teenagers. Obesity in adolescence was the subject of the first thesis of the Doctorate Program in Cultural Diversity and Social Inclusion of Feevale University, performed by Denise Bolzan Berlese: Teenagers’ obesity as a social manifestation from the socioeconomic, cultural and household context.

 

For this study, Denise interviewed 21 obese teenagers, from classes C and D, ranging between 12 and 18 years old from both genders, who are treated at Ambulatório de Obesidade da Infância e Adolescência at a high complexity hospital in the central area of Rio Grande do Sul. Besides the teenagers, she also listened to 21 members of their families and 10 principals of the schools in which they study. The goal was to investigate how obesity is displayed in teenagers, based in the socioeconomic, cultural and household context, considering it is a chronic, complex and multifactorial disease, which means it is necessary to take many factors into consideration to understand it. The conclusion was restless: the family’s environment would be the main responsible for the children and teenagers’ obesity.

 

 

All teenagers treated in the ambulatory where Denise conducted the interviews were obese; 95% of them are going to be obese adults. She found out that all of them suffered bullying at school and also inside their houses, but they do not feel excluded because they do not feel different from most of the population, because there are many people overweight. The teacher also found out that parents or guardians responsible for the teenagers do not see obesity as a problem, they think it is a transitory period that will disappear as they grow up or that the damages to their health will show up only when they get older.

 

Other discovery was that the principals of the public schools do not realize the presence of obese students in the environment, and also do not offer a specific treatment related to food served in the schools to these students. Schools’ menu comes from the state or city’s education secretary. On the other hand, parents and guardians do not take any responsibility for their children’s disease too, arguing that they do not have any power over youth, because they are already autonomous.

 

So, the conclusion the researcher achieves is that obesity is a household disease. According to Denise, it is important to point out that these teenagers have already gone through anxiety treatments, besides not having problems to have emotional relationships. There is negligence in the different contexts these teenagers are living in. There are also different factors which contribute to aggravate obesity among teenagers: members of the families do not understand obesity as a serious disease, sports activities are not encouraged among families (62% of the parents do not do any physical activity) and there is no observance to a healthy diet.