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.
Sample Response
There is no doubt that the percentage of overweight childrenoverweight children’s percentages rose by twenty percent in the Western worldin western world. There are several factors that have played a rolefactors, which played role. Also, there are some effects of being overweight. OneOn of the major factorsfactor that has contributed to the increasecontributed to increase in children’s weight is unhealthy food. The number of childrenNumber of children eating unhealthy food is on the rise, and the growing number of fast-food restaurantsand number of increasing fast food restaurants are responsible for that.These restaurantsrestaurant sell tasty food to attract children, butattract children but thisthese food contain unhealthy ingredients, for example, fat and salt. Secondly, some advertisements encouragesome advertisements that encourage children to eat an unhealthy dietunhealthy diet. Lastly, children do not spend time ondo not give time to out door activities because they spend more time watching television or playing games on computers at home, which leads to a sedentary lifestyleled to sedentary lifestyle. As a result, children become overweight. Overweight children are prone to many problems. They are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, later in lifeduring their late age of life. These conditions are life threatening. In addition, these children can be bullied at school by their peerscan be tortured at school by peers, which can affect their mental healthhave effects on their mental health like stress, anxiety and insomnia. These problems, in turn, often result in lower productivity at school. FurthermoreFuthermore, they are less likely to be selected for school sports teamsschool’s sport team because selectors might be concerned about their fitnessselection team might concern about their fitness. In,factors like poor diet, sedentary lifestyle because of advance in technology has led to increase in overweight children, and these may cause serious physiological and psychological problems to children health.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response addresses both causes and effects with a clear sequence and several relevant examples, particularly the links between diet, inactivity, physical health, and social harm. Its main limitation is frequent grammatical and word-choice error, alongside weak paragraphing, which makes some ideas sound imprecise. Prioritise dividing the essay into clear cause-and-effect paragraphs and editing sentences for articles, agreement, and natural collocations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response covers several relevant causes and effects, though some points are briefly or imprecisely developed.
Develop each main cause and effect through a clear explanation of how it arises and why it matters.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas follow a recognisable causes-to-effects sequence, but the single block of text and some mechanical linking weaken organisation.
Use separate introduction, causes, effects, and conclusion paragraphs with clearer internal progression.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficient for the topic and includes some appropriate health terms, but spelling and collocation errors recur.
Proofread for word forms and replace awkward combinations with natural phrases such as physical activities and later life.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mixture of sentence forms conveys the main message, but frequent errors in articles, agreement, plurals, and punctuation reduce control.
Edit each sentence for subject-verb agreement and article use before checking punctuation and sentence boundaries.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
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.
Your response
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