Gap In Diet Quality Between Wealthiest And Poorest Americans

America is known for being one of the most obese countries in the world. Once you step foot in America, people can quickly find out why; everywhere you look there are a ton of fast food chains on nearly every block. Fast food to Americans is a quick, easy, and affordable way to get food. In the past Forty years, more than 160,000 fast food restaurants have opened in America (Pirello). This cheap and quick meal comes at a cost; according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDCP), more than 66 percent of Americans are overweight and obese. To make things worse, the CDCP notes that one third of children and adolescents are obese. David Zinczenko, the editor-in- chief of Men’s Health

Apart from healthcare issue, the country has adopted the fast-moving life style, which has pushed most of our citizens to succumb to obesity as a result of fast foods. In fact, a recent report by the UN has ranked the United States as the most obese country in the world. Parramore (2012) outlines that, “Obesity is currently being considered as a national crisis in the United States and that it contributes 100,000 to 400,000 deaths per year. Statistics at the CDC and Prevention in 2010 indicate that 35.7% of the American adult is obese.” Many input trends exist in the American society, “First and foremost, people are highly used to fried foods, sugary drinks, and processed meats among others. There is also the sedentary lifestyle that has been adopted by many,” (Huffington Post, 2013). In fact, most of us love relaxing without exercise and too much television watching. These are some of the factors that contribute to obesity. The result is health complications problems such as diabetes, stroke, and heart disease just to mention but a few. These affect the longevity of life.

According to Wall Street Journal, “More than 33% of adults who earn less than $15,000 per year were obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn at least $50,000 per year.” (Izzo 2011) Processed foods such as cheeseburger or French fries tend to be cheaper than buying healthier ingredients and making home cooked food. When people have lower incomes, they do suffer from food insecurity, which is an important connection between poverty and obesity. Two reasons can contribute to obesity: parents are working and are no longer at home with their children and therefore not able to cook balanced meals; and foods with high fat are cheaper than healthy foods.

In America’s society today, Individuals are taking the blame off of themselves and shifting it onto the food industry. The food industry does indeed put up a very tempting environment for Americans, targeting unhealthy choices, but nevertheless, it is up to the customer as to what they spend their money on. Even with attempted changes in nutrition within the food industry, most people take no interest in it. But, when someone is motivated, results of a healthier lifestyle is shown in multiple ways. Americans need to realize that dedication can overcome temptation and not only lower numbers on the scale, but better their overall

Understanding the effects of poor and efficient eating habits and how to manage your health is crucial to the existence of a healthy population in the America. To understand these approaches, one has to understand some of the poor eating habits witnessed on most people in the United States. Paula (2015) states that only ten percent of the entire American population follow a daily diet consistent with the federal nutrient recommendations. Other than following the required nutrition, most people prefer meals rich in trans-fats, salt, saturated fat, and sugar and ignore fruits, vegetables, and fiber. The increased preference of poor nutrition contributes a total of four out of six in

The United States has progressed from a rural, agricultural nation to an urbanized industrial one in just the last two centuries. Through this the transformation of the American lifestyles have changed drastically. Other countries focus on eating well, excercise, and taking enough time to eat and enjoying what they are eating. One lifestyle that many Americans have adapted to is the Western Diet, but today around the world the Western Diet is not viewed as the most nutritious or beneficial diet for humans. The nutritional patterns of high-fat and cholesterol, high protein, high sugar, and excessive salt intake, as well as the excessive consumption of processed fast foods has collectively defined the Western Diet. Even though this type of

In the past forty years, the average American’s weight has skyrocketed. This can be traced to the introduction of fast food into our everyday lives. Fatty cheeseburgers and grease laden French fries have replaced fresh fish and crisp vegetables. Americans have come to value convenience more highly than personal health and consequently we are paying for what we consume.

While it is common for many Americans to be preached to on a daily basis about the importance of healthy eating and exercise, what most don’t consider is that one doesn’t have to completely give up the food that they love in order to strive to become more healthy. Even though the best thing for America to do would be to give up unhealthy eating habits completely, this goal is just not realistic. Fast food and unhealthy eating are too deeply ingrained in American culture to change within a decade. As of now, the best thing to do would be to incorporate better foods into their daily diets in order to better balance out the unhealthy food. This way, at least not all of the total calories consumed on a daily basis are from saturated fats, and other bad foods. Approaching America with this idea can be less intimidating than to suggest completely taking away junk food. This way people are more coerced into the idea and are more likely to switch over to a healthier diet than telling them to eat healthy right off the

The choices American’s make about their eating habits has drastically changed over time. Today America is an obese nation, because food is everywhere: at the grocery store, on billboard signs, or even at the hardware store. There are statistics that prove America is an obese nation, the public just has to go search for those. Many diets and experts have tips to give to help American’s and others lose weight. This is the point that Susan Brink and Elizabeth Querna are trying to get across in their article, “Eat this Now.” Within the article, the two go in to detail about how Americans eat all the time. Brink and Querna’s article really bring to light the problems that American’s have by showing how American’s eat to

Obesity has become a serious health problem in the United States, Americans eat more calories than they expend as a result, the body stores an excess as fat. Nutrition journalist Greg Critser presents a critical analysis of many researches that give specific reasons why Americans became the fattest people in the world. According to Critser, the obesity epidemic is the result of multiple, complex and interacting dynamics which include governmental, economic, industrial, agricultural and social factors.

Foremost of all, like I had mentioned before, the rate of obesity, heart diseases and diabetes is growing than it ever had. There are over 29 million cases of diabetes last year, more than 700 thousands people died each year because of heart attacks, and about 3 million cases of obesity per year in the U.S. The causes of those problems are really simple yet complex, it's each person's taste, conditions and their way of thinking for themselves. Example, you go to McDonald, ordered a Big Mac, Coke and some French fries like a habit, because those are your favorite but not realize how bad the choices of food you just made, and just let’s them all slowly destroy your body afterwards. It's normal for Americans to eat fast foods, refined and processed food, sweets and high fat or carbohydrate foods since they're too popular and common in our culture, but these are food that needs to be limited instead of to be overeating.

Obesity is on a rise and it’s getting harder and harder to come up with solutions to obesity. We have tried to offer healthier choices at school but are pizza and hamburgers really that healthy? We’ve added salad to the menu but never removed the unhealthy ones or substituted some of the unhealthy ingredients in the food item. It’s not just at school but at home as well. The price of healthy food is getting high and cheap unhealthy food is well, cheap. In “America’s middle class” the author states “A widening wealth gap is moving more households into either higher- or lower-income groups in major metro areas, with fewer remaining in the middle, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center”. If the middle class

Today’s society is infatuated with the thought of being fit and skinny. Although eating healthy and balanced sounds ideal for most Americans, this can be more difficult than it seems. Because of the number of families living in poverty, eating a nutritious and balanced diet is a tremendous challenge. Healthy foods generally cost more than cheaper, processed foods. Families attempting to make the most of their scarce amount of money will try to stretch their dollar and purchase large quantities of food, disregarding the nutritional value. Many studies show the correlation between obesity and other health issues, with a family’s financial status. Although there are now several ways for today’s society to be healthful, including new diet

“Dietary patterns of Americans differ widely, but most Americans eat a diet that could best be described as in need of improvement”. Compared to other countries, the American diet is very different. I have first hand experienced how much different Americans eat from other countries. For a brief, but very beneficial and productive time, I lived in Barcelona, Spain with my host family. Over in Spain, they eat much more fresh, organic food. There was a lot more seafood in the average diet. The meal configuration over there is also different than ours. Lunch is the largest meal eaten every day; different than America, where dinner is the largest.

Tracy McMillan claims in her article, ‘‘Gap in Diet Quality between Wealthiest and Poorest American Doubles, Study Finds’’ that low-income American families have the poorest diet quality. One evidence is proven ‘‘All Americans Improved on average between 2005 and 2010, the progress masked a decline in diet quality among