Obesity Essay

Do you get enough exercise? Are you sure about that? Or how about this, are you overweight, do you even know? Today’s adolescents don’t. In fact today’s adolescents face serious risk from their lack of activity. Today’s children are obese because they have developed some very bad habits related to healthy living and as result can suffer serious physical and psychological damage.

Obesity is defined as a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduce life expectancy and/or increased health problems. “The problem of obesity is increasing in the United States. Understanding the impact of social inequalities on health has become a public health priority in the new millennium. Social, political, and economic factors now are acknowledged to be "fundamental" causes of disease that affect behavior, beliefs, and biology.” (Goodman, 2003)  In the United States today, obesity has become an enormous problem. In the last 3 decades, the number of people overweight has increased dramatically. Obesity has not always been seen as a medical

Obesity has played a major role in media over the last decade. With growing concern over the issue, a controversy over whether obesity is a disease itself or not has developed. Obesity, by definition, is a condition that is characterized by excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body, usually indicated by a body mass index of 30 or greater. According to the currently accepted definition of disease, a condition of the body or one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms, it can be concluded that obesity does not meet the criteria to be classified as a disease.

Obesity in America is real and profoundly alarming when you look at the major impact it has on our communities. Major health concerns like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure cases are at an all time high. Specifically, the disparity between low-income urban inner cities in regards to obesity as compared to more upper class wealthier communities makes you take pause. This relates to my professional goals of going back into my community as an activist and organizer of issues related to my environment, like health and education.

When tourist come to America they see the bigger food portions on our plates than what they would see in other countries throughout the world. In the U.S. obesity is a one of the major problems we have because people are free to buy and eat what they want without anyone to tell them differently. The cost of healthier foods are also more expensive than buying fast food or anything else that’s not healthy. As the obesity issue becomes a bigger problem new problems start to rise. For example health issues are increasing for the obese.

Obesity is a problem in different areas throughout the world; obesity is a major problem in the United States of America. The food industry in the U.S. has changed. Food is cheaper and easier to access, but food is lower in quality and is massively produced (Kenner, 2008). Food is no longer as hard to come by as it once was and is not as expensive, but healthy food is more expensive and, most of the time, requires trips to the grocery store. In American society today, American are busy and have minimal time to exercise, cooking, or even go to the grocery store. The lower socioeconomic classes are notably affected as a result of individuals and families of lower socioeconomic classes often can’t afford healthy food from local grocery stores

Why do Americans overeat to the point of becoming obese and what are the effects on the body? As the world looks at society today, clearly Americans have an issue with being overweight and becoming obese especially compared with other countries. “Approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese,” and “more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese” (Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 2013, Data and Statistics).

Once the issue of malnutrition plagued many countries around the world, today obesity has become the new epidemic. The word epidemic traditionally “refers to an acute outbreak of disease caused by a specific microorganism that spreads through a sizable portion of a population and requires serious responses such as quarantines, travel restrictions, and medical treatment” (Bellisari, 2013, p. 4). Dealing with an epidemic often brings social disruption. When you look at how many millions of people are affected by obesity and its related health concerns, the use of the word epidemic seems very appropriate. When discussing the dynamics of obesity you must consider the rising number of

Over one-half of all Americans are overweight or obese. If you are overweight or obese, carrying this extra weight puts you at risk for developing many diseases. Women generally have more subcutaneous fat than men, but appear to suffer a greater cardiovascular risk from a given degree of fat than women.

In article one Maia Szalavitz, wrote an article titled, “Viewpoint: Defining Obesity as a Disease May do More Harm Than Good.” She is a neuroscience journalist from Time Magazine, who talked about the harmful effect classifying obesity will have on one’s life, as well as others around them. In article two Dr. Keith Ablow’s article is called, “Obesity is not a Disease- and Neither is Alcoholism.” He is a psychiatrist and a member of the Fox Medical A-Team who talked about the solution to obesity, may be as simple as raising someone’s self-esteem. Both these articles talk why one should not classify obesity as a disease, but only one talks about the solution to solve the problem of obesity. Even though Szalavitz and Ablow are similarly matched rhetorically by taking a world-wide problem and discussing the issue of classifying it as a disease; Ablow is more rhetorically effective, because he uses more examples and evidence from different sources to back up his reasoning.

Obesity does not discriminate against social status, sex, or race; it can take a person’s life and turn it upside down in the blink of an eye if they are not careful. Some people think of obesity as a worldwide killer because there is no outrunning it if it overtakes a person’s body. Every 1 in 3 adults are obese right here in America, that should give each and every individual some type of hint that there is a major problem occurring. The obesity epidemic is not something that has just caught the attention of people recently; it has been going on since the 1950’s! This epidemic is a major problem; over 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being obese or extremely overweight and over 40 million children were said to be obese in

Obesity rates are soaring throughout North America (What Is Obesity?, 2013). With obesity reaching almost epidemic proportions in the United States, and the threat of a global epidemic, we must watch this alarming increase carefully ( Health Risks of Obesity, 2013). Obesity is defined as: "…an excess of adipose tissue…" (A Report of the Surgeon General, 2014). The two most common measures of obesity are Body Mass Index (BMI is a ratio of weight to height) and relative weight index, such as percent desirable weight (Body Mass Index , 2013). BMI is the most frequently used measure of obesity as it has a strong correlation with more direct measures of adiposity, such as underwater weighing (A Report of the Surgeon General, 2013). Some

Within the past three years obesity among children has tripled. Childhood obesity is considered the number one health threat in America. Childhood obesity has become a major issue facing America. And today over “nine million” (Selicia 4, May) United States children are overweight and obese. Sadly “2 million” (Tanner 2005) of these children are at risk for type 2 diabetes. Obesity has become a burden to the United States economy and it is costing America “$147 billion” (Holden, 2010) a year.

Record-high levels of food inequality are being felt most prominently in the world's cities. Since the year 2000, New York City food costs have increased by 59 percent, while the average income of working adults has only increased by 17 percent. (Breggin 1) rising food costs and lack of food availability in urban areas has created effects that are felt by millions of people around the world. The USDA defines Food insecurity as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, and it is plaguing our nation. Characterized by inability to find healthy food and not having enough to sustain a household are problems that an estimated 12.3 % of American households experience regularly (USDA 1).chart food sec..png

The day before Thanksgiving I left work thinking about all the things I still needed to do for the holiday such as picking up take-out so I wouldn’t have to cook anything that night, making one more trip to the store, and wondering if I should buy another dessert. It started raining, and I was hoping it would stop before I had to park at the grocery store, and the store wouldn’t be too crowded. When I got to my first destination of the night, my thoughts stopped, and I realized that my worries were pretty superficial. I had just arrived for my volunteer shift at the food pantry at Rosie’s Place, a Shelter and resource center for women in Boston. There I remembered just what being thankful was all about. The women who were picking up their groceries that night didn’t have my superficial worries, they had to worry about how to make food stretch from one check to the next. They had to worry about carrying multiple heavy bags of food in the rain, on a crowed bus and through neighborhoods that are not safe in the daylight, never mind at night. These women and their families are among the many in the country that are food insecure.