Did you know that two- thirds of adults and one-thirds of children in the United States are obese or overweight? (USA Today) According to Webster, obesity is defined as condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body. Body Mass Index (BMI) person weight in kilogram divided by the square of a person’s height in meters. I view obesity as a life style disease that does not discriminate. Obesity is more prevalent today due to inactivity and poor eating habits. No one has to remain obese; with proper diet, exercise and life style changes the weight will come off and stay off. I am speaking from experience; I suffered from obesity at a very young age and it carried over into my adult life. Food was used as
Obesity is an increasing epidemic affecting the United States in an alarming and negative way. In the past centuries it was rare for Americans to be obese. Today they’re numerous factors contributing to the epidemic but they can be reversed with awareness of the severity of the issue, it’s affect on health, and a willingness to make changes in their daily life.
know over the past couple of years America has become one one of the most obese countries in the world and to be quite honest the reason for it are right in front of us. If you go out to McDonalds everything is so ridiculously cheap. From snack cakes to 12 pack sodas being less than 5.00 you can easily say that there is a problem in how we are going about this obesity problem in the United States today. To be honest how many of us can honestly say that we have never indulged in some type of our favorite food that was extremely cheap these days? I can answer that for you not very man at all. Upon further research I noticed that in 2012 a study showed that obesity rated have increased at a constant level and have stayed there for about a couple of years but even that is still unacceptable. The reason why that is unacceptable is because about 40 percent of all Americans are obese to this day that is twice the amount that is was about 30 years ago and it is still growing in outrageous numbers. Not only has that but the number of children being obese nearly tripled in that time frame to about 17 percent. So in all honesty, do you believe that we are doing enough to bring these ridiculous numbers? Do you believe America is doing enough to bring these numbers down? I will answer that for you a big fat NO because making food that is unhealthy for you extremely cheap and giving your kids anything they want to eat no matter what it is apparently is not working at all and it needs to
Obesity is a complex health issue to address. Obesity results from a combination of causes and contributing factors, including individual factors such as behavior and genetics. Obesity is defined simply as too much body fat. Your body is made up of water, fat, protein, carbohydrate and various vitamins and minerals. Nearly 36 % of American adults are obese. Being obese puts you at a higher risk for health problems such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and more. Obesity is a growing epidemic in America’s society today.
Obesity has always been a problem since the beginning of civilization. Indulgence and scarcity are the primitive examples of how such a problem had formed. Now, obesity’s causation had evolved to more than just the simplicities. The U.S. is today’s modern examples of the modern epidemic. It’s become such an issue, to the point where the government is taking certain measures and employing programs to combat obesity. However, their methods are proven ineffective due to socioeconomic division among the poor who are unable to afford to change their lifestyle.
I write this proposal on obesity as it relates to the struggle that Americans face today. As a young child growing up, I had a struggle with being bigger. I was on the verge of becoming obese in the ninth grade. Weighing in at 260 lbs, with common health issue that I may be diagnosed with, I knew I must range my life for the better. Obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure runs in my family, so it is not a surprise when a relative becomes bigger or has diabetes. The reason why I became so big was that I have hypothyroidism, meaning, my thyroid gland does not produce adequate amounts of hormones to metabolize what I had eaten. So instead of my food being converted to energy, it was converted and stored into fat. Thus leaving me extremely tired. I would not even go through half the day without taking a long, and I would be more hungry. With my own past and present experience, my study on obesity will focus on the reasons why Americans are so big. I will define obesity as having too much body fat and having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30. Questions asked might be: who is obese? What are some common health issues related to obesity? What can be done about this issue? Turning the table around and getting everyone involved in the social issue will improve the wellbeing of Americans in the United States.
Obesity is an epidemic that affects individuals worldwide. Unfortunately, more children are facing issues with obesity than ever before, leading to major health issues including diabetes, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol. The CDC website defines childhood obesity as a “BMI (body mass index) at or above the 95th percentile for children and teens of the same age and sex”("Defining Childhood Obesity," 2015, p. 1). It is important that parents understand that how the health of their child can affect the rest of their lives. The President-Elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics states that “to recognize obesity as a disease does help because it allows us to determine the chronic disease model and address obesity with community-level interventions, healthy interventions, and family interventions”(Devereaux, 2014, p. 288). This paper will examine an online website that is dedicated to the well-being and overall health of children. It will also analyze the mission, usability, and credibility of the online resource.
above the level that usually defines obesity are perfectly healthy while others below it can have dangerous levels of body fat and metabolic problems associated with obesity. However, Obese is a serious problem and it is considered to be a disease and a serious one because you can die from being overweight just as much you can die for have AIDS. It is just one stays with you and more of a serious cause. The body needs a certain amount of energy (calories) from food to keep up basic life functions. Body weight tends to remain the same when the number of calories eaten equals the number of calories the body uses or “burns.” High rates of obesity are largely responsible for the United States’ declining health outcomes and rapidly rising healthcare costs. Lack of availability and affordability of healthy food contribute to the obesity epidemic. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘’Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Aug. 2016 ‘’more than two-thirds of American adults and one-third of American youth are now obese or overweight.
The Obesity Epidemic is a topic widely studied and mentioned in several contexts’ both medical and social. Obesity is described by Boero (2012) to have exploded in meaning Post- World War II to be more than a “physical flaw.” Weight concern became an idea that debuted in magazines mainly targeting women and emphasizing “natural thinness.” The disappearance of the normally worn “corset” and popularization of the typical 1920’s “boy catching” flapper, increased the production of diet products and the ideology of “desirable thinness” which gave birth to a social and moral model of obesity as a disease (Boero 2012). Throughout her book, Boero (2012) examines the ways in which the view of obesity has transformed into a medicalized epidemic, rather than a simple “flaw in human biology” in addition to the implications that come along with the “epidemic” title it has been given. Although there is a relationship between poor health and fatness, the Obesity epidemic would fail to exist in the absence of societies constant fat shaming, medicalization of fatness and an emphasis on individual blame. The Mayo Clinic’s “My Weight Solution” pamphlet and “The HAES Manifesto” each approach health and weight from a different angle. The Mayo Clinic’s pamphlet takes the Anti-Obesity Approach giving reasons as to why people should have a negative outlook on Obesity while also blaming a handful of obesity-related issues on the bad habits of an individual person. The HAES Manifesto adopts a more
Even though there a numerous advertisements for high-calorie and unhealthy meals that cause obesity there is a stigma against obesity. When one searches for the word obesity onto google the first definition of the word is “the condition of being grossly fat or overweight.” In this definition degrades a person who suffers from obesity by describing them as “grossly”. The denotation of the word “grossly” in this definition means excessively however the connotation of the word can reduce it to mean something that is unacceptably as in this term unacceptable to society. Thus this definition implies that obese people are unfit in society. In western standards of beauty an ideal woman is thin and beautiful and the ideal man is fit and toned. Thus
In the United States of America, obesity, especially in children, has been on a steady rise since the 1970s. Many health organizations and public figures have tried to combat this rise through passing new policies and speaking out against the epidemic. These efforts have resulted in little progress as health officials have declared that obesity has stayed consistent in the nation over the years (Tavernise). It is critical that the issue of obesity is combated against successfully as obesity can have many long-term health risks to an individual such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. As a result of these drawbacks, it is especially important to further address the issue as obesity can be particularly harmful to children as they
Obesity has been an issue that is been pathologized in the Samoan community.. I am not entirely sure if the blame is on fast-food industries or it has something to do with our unique genes. I grew up in American Samoa, a small island southwest of Hawaii, and health is not a priority in my community. One health challenge that I have witnessed while growing up in Samoa is the growing rate of obesity among the community. According to the World Health Organization records, 95% of the populations are overweight. Most Samoans depend heavily on western food such as burgers, hot dogs, pizzas, and other fried food that has been introduced to people’s diet. Some people cannot afford organic foods or vegetables because it is too expensive so they turn to fast-food chains since they offer a cheap and convenient alternative. Being obese in Samoa is “normal” since more than half of the population fall under this category. However, that view has changed once western culture become heavily involved in the Samoan community in regards to cultural and social beliefs.
The current state of obesity in the United States is a greater than that of other countries who live healthier lifestyles. Living healthy lifestyles is a great goal for a country to look towards achieving, and encouraging these lifestyles can benefit the country as well as the people. There are a lot of benefits for living healthy lifestyles, while there are also many negatives to living an unhealthy lifestyle. Taxing fatty foods would help to encourage buying healthy foods, and it could reduce obesity rates in America. There are a couple of problems within this way of thinking like: profits declining, people having to spend more, and the government going
Obesity has become a huge problem in the United States, and has affected almost everyone’s lives in some way. Obesity is not something people should take lightly, but many do. Obesity is very dangerous and can shorten a person’s life by years. Both David Zinczenko and Radley Balko agree that obesity is dangerous and has emerged as a huge problem. However, the two differ on why this problem has occurred and how it may be solved. Zinczenko believes that fast food restauraunts are at fault for the many unlabeled obvious health hazards. While Balko goes in the complete opposite direction, he says that obesity is our own fault and is causing healthy people to
Obesity has become an epidemic in American societies that has become a public concern. According to the American Obesity Association (AOA), overweight and obesity rates are higher than ever in America’s youth. Obesity is the fastest growing cause of disease in American society today. Some of the major health concerns for today’s youth with obesity include severe asthma, Diabetes, Hypertension, orthopedic complications and sleep apnea. Researchers have come up with many different causes of obesity including biological cause, psychological causes, and sociological causes. Although they have been able to come up with these causes one of the most blamed causes of obesity is the food industry. Medical researchers and other professionals have been able to produce a variety of solutions to treat and prevent obesity including Gastric bypass surgery that is available at the age of eighteen. With all the solutions present, without changing the attitudes and lifestyles of the parents who are buying the food for the children the epidemic will continue.
Obesity related illnesses contribute to over 300,000 deaths per year in the U.S. We are a nation of overfed under nourished people with obesity becoming a pandemic. Obesity was once thought to be exclusively a social problem; it is now classified as a medical problem. It is a multibillion dollar industry. Losing weight is not just as simple as exercising more and eating less, as our society has grown more complex the obesity rate has risen. Obesity is a growing problem in the U.S. today caused primarily by environmental conditions, food systems and lifestyle changes.