Obesity Be Stigmatized Essay

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

Whether it be in media or only in people’s perceptions, Obese individuals are portrayed as gluttonous, dangerously overeating or otherwise always thinking of food.Commonly because of all the food they eat, obese people also must be well off, living stable enough incomes to support their “food-addiction” and probably sit around all day. But if they don’t understand the basics of how food works, they must be stupid too, right? Basically the American view on obesity is anyone that appears or is obese must be dumb, sloth like with enough money to support the expense of gallons of ice cream a week.

People are usually identified as obese based on their Body Mass Index (BMI). The average BMI is ranged from 18.5 to 24.9, and overweight BMI is 25-29.9 (Defining Overweight and Obesity, 2012). When a person’s BMI reaches 30 and above, he or she is probably obese. At least one out of three people in United States suffer from obesity which means one third of the nation population needs treatment. In 2013, obesity has been officially recognized as a disease by the American Medical Association. The debate for obesity as a medical disease has never stopped ever since. However, while smoking and alcoholism are addictive and harmful, we hardly consider them as diseases. So why should obesity be a medical disease? Does labeling obesity a disease help calm the epidemic? If obesity is not a disease, how should we label it?

In the chapter The Adoption and Management of a “Fat” Identity, Douglas Degher and Gerald Hughes analyze how the reality of people that are overweight changes. “Obese people are fat first, and only secondary are seen as possessing ancillary characteristics.”(Degher and Hughes p.265). In today's society being overweight or not having the ideal body being portrayed by the media is usually considered as unhealthy. As a consequence, pharmaceutical drugs are being created daily to help reduce weight, workout dvds are being produced daily, and clothes keeps getting reduced and limited so that overweight people have a hard time finding something that fits them and that they like. In the eyes of countless individuals, being fat is considered deviant

Obesity has become an epidemic across the United States. Americans have continued to gain weight, increasing the amount of people that are considered obese by millions every few years. More and more experts have come to a consensus: weight needs to be addressed and changed in America. Many experts, however, have not found a way to completely solve this problem at large. In the article, “Rethinking Weight”, senior writer Amanda Spake directs attention to the barriers our society has built for obesity treatment. Through this attention, it becomes evident these barriers have developed from the changing ideals in our society. Roberta Seid, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, argues in “Too “Close to the Bone”: The Historical Context for Women’s Obsession with Slenderness” how our body ideals have changed the way our society views obesity. Both authors emphasize the problem our society faces with obesity becoming an epidemic, and how that needs to be changed so our society can live happier and healthier lives. Although both authors are achieving the same point, Spake concludes that obesity has stemmed from pharmaceutical problems and biological factors, while Seid holds that obesity has come from the changing fashion and body ideals in our society. By reading both articles in conjunction, it becomes clear that the root of this problem is our societal issues, obesity has become an epidemic because of the way our society neglects obesity from all aspects.

Obesity is a constantly growing issue in the world, but mostly saturated in the United States. As the amount of people with extreme obesity increase rapidly are increasing as well. People with morbid to severe obesity often experience physical and psychological distress, and limitations with daily life activities. Stigma and the visibility of obesity is a huge issue in our society, media portrayal of obesity and popular culture are also contributors and how obese individuals are viewed.

Epidemics of any scale have both threatened the Earth’s people and frightened them in ways unfathomable. Whether it be a global outbreak of swine flu or an isolated incident of a cold in a small village they all shake the community on some level. But imagine an epidemic that people willingly promote the growth of an outbreak, one that is being pushed on a national scale to everyone on every social and economic tier. Obesity has been viewed as a social epidemic and is even noted to have a serious rate of infection through the connection of social networks. The Fat Acceptance Movement, or FAM, has been the main sponsor of this epidemic by claiming it’s acceptable to be obese despite the evidence that’s stacked against their claims. Obesity acceptance needs to be stopped as it is a slow suicide for the obese, and hurts the nation as a whole overall through social distraught and secondary economic misfortune, in the sense that everyone loses in some way.

Increasingly high obesity rates among the U.S. population have both personal and societal ramifications. For the individual, increased body mass has been linked to a myriad of health issues including heart disease, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer, strokes, kidney & liver disease, and hypertension. (Wilmore, et al., 2008) On a societal level, the Center for Disease Control estimates that obesity related medical care costs reached a staggering $147 billion in 2008 with obese patients costing $1,400 more per patient than those that fell into a "normal" weight rage (CDC). Obesity-related diseases may also contribute to millions of lost workdays and higher insurance premiums (CNBC).

Science and medicine researcher, Matthew Herper, discusses the expenses of obesity in his article, “The Hidden Cost Of Obesity.” He says, “The economic cost of all this extra fat is immense. Direct medical costs are easiest to calculate, coming in at $93 billion, or 9%, of our national medical bill,” (Herper). This quote shows that obesity is a costly disease and the expense of it is accumulating to billions of dollars in bills. Herper goes into even more detail about costs when he discusses the social costs of obesity when saying, “Obese people miss more work, costing employers something on the order of $4

For centuries obesity has been a problem among the people of these earth. During these last few years it has rapidly grown all around the world. Obesity has become a very big problem for all sexes and ages. And it has put The United States has been second in the list of countries of most obese people in the country. Obesity is a disease because it meets all the criteria and steps needed to be a disease. Being an obese person impairs you like any other disease. The United States is the second most obese industrialized country in the world. The first one being mexico but not by much.“It decreases life expectancy and impairs the normal functioning of the body; and it can be caused

In the American culture, obesity is seen as a bodily abnormality and deviance that should be corrected. Obesity has indeed become one of the most stigmatizing bodily characteristics in our culture (Brink, 1994). In the Western culture, thinness does not just mean the size of the

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

A sociological imagination is a useful tool when it comes to studying society. It is the ability to look at public issues as an outsider and understand them in a way that is not bias or related to one’s own culture, religion or personal beliefs. It can be useful in understanding health problems as social issues (Germov, 2013). A sociological imagination can help us to understand why the incidence of obesity is increasing despite knowing the health risks that come with it. In this essay I will describe what a sociological imagination is and how it is used to understand why people are obese despite knowing the health risks.

Obesity is a very serious subject that a lot of people take lightly, especially us as Americans. America is the most obese country in the world. Statistics show that 300,000 people die a day in the United States of America due to obesity. This clearly shows that we have a serious problem that is massively underestimated. Obesity is also something that countries all across the world suffer from. For example, Australia is also one of the most obese countries in the world, and 50,000 people die a year from obesity in Australia. That’s 140 people who die per day in Australia. To solve the problem of obesity the prices of junk food should be raised and the prices of healthy food should be lowered and more convenient.

Obesity in the United States has really become an economic problem as well. People are spending the little money that they have and spending it on food that they shouldn’t be eating in the first place, which they should be spending their money on healthier and nutritious food, for themselves and their family. New England Medical Center, Michael Dansinger of the Tufts says: