Obesity in America 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

Obesity has been a growing problem in the U.S. for more than a decade. Various reasons and theories are thrown around as to the cause of this severe problem by psychologists, dietitians, and professors trying to pinpoint a single cause. Due to America’s vast supply of resources, luxurious living standards, and moral of the country, there is no one cause for obesity contrary to advertisements offering a quick-fix drug. America’s obesity problem is rooted much deeper than just cheap fast food and poor choices. Medical conditions, influence of genes, unhealthy lifestyles, and mental illnesses are all contributors towards obesity in any one person. Obesity is a serious problem in America with multiple contributors and one lone solution

“Obesity is a disease that affects more than one-third of the U.S adult population (approximately 78.6 million Americans). The number of Americans with obesity had steadily increase since 1960, a trend that has slowed down in recent years but show no sign of reversing”.

Obesity has become increasingly more prominent in American society. The Unites States has even been termed an overweight nation. Some twenty to thirty percent of American adults are now considered obese (Hwang 1999 and Hirsch et al 1997). With this in mind, Americans constantly look around themselves determining their weight status as well as that of those around them. While some Americans do fit the healthy category, others enter the underweight, overweight, and even obese categories, all of which can be unhealthy.

Polygenic obesity also known as “common obesity” is mutations in many genes, or the development of many environmental factors. Polygenic obesity occurs when both the genes and the environment interact with each other. An example of this would be a person being surrounded by a bad environment, promoting unhealthy habits, such as lack of exercise and an excess consumption of foods, plus with the genetic makeup of the person adding on to it. “In fact, if a biologic mother is heavy as an adult, there is a 75% chance that her children will be heavy.”(wvdhhr.org). Because this type of obesity is prone to many complex interactions, it gives way to various different outcomes. Polygenic obesity is studied in the DNA mainly through single nucleotide polymorphisms, meaning there is a single variation in a sequence of pairs in the DNA. Polygenic obesity can be controlled by the environment a person is in, by choosing healthy foods and exercising regularly obesity can be prevented. Also, a parent can prevent obesity in a child by giving them healthy food options in order to learn it at a young age a use it later on in their adult

Obesity has rapidly emerged as a serious health issue in America. The cause of obesity results from America’s social injustices. Today, food advertisements are in all places promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. Considering the great expense of healthy foods, low income families can barely afford fruits and vegetables. These two factors contribute to the increasing obesity rate in the United States. Unfortunately, it has taken an excessive amount of Americans to become obese for America to become aware of the issue and take action. Although obesity is still an increasing problem, America is fighting to reduce the number of obese citizens. As a result of low income and the media advertising unhealthy lifestyles, America is in the midst of an obesity epidemic.

Obesity represents a condition where individuals put on abnormal, or, above average weights when weighted on the Body Mass Index, BMI, Scale (Thomas, Hyde, Karunaratne, Herbert & Komesaroff, 2008). Acquisition of weight to extreme levels may get attributed to the lifestyle and the genetic affiliation of a given person. In some instances, consumption of junk food and indulgence in

Polymorphisms in various genes controlling appetite and metabolism predispose to obesity when adequate food energy is present. Studies that have focused on inheritance patterns rather than on specific genes have found that the children of two obese parents were more than likely to become obese, compared to the children of two parents who are of normal weight. Different people exposed to the same environment have diverse risks of obesity due to their underlying genetics. The environment we live in has certainly played major permissive roles in the increasing amount of fat mass people receive. Like some disorders, obesity can be treated, managed, and controlled. Obesity is said to not have a cure because it is a life-long treatment. Almost 10% of morbidly obese people have defects in genes that regulate weight, food intake, and metabolism.

Factors associated to obesity include an interplay between genetic, behavioral, and envi-ronmental factors (Rogers, 2010). In fact, the combination of genetic and environmental factors increases the

There are many unknowns about obesity which make it difficult to pinpoint such as, whether it is inherited, genetic, or completely self imposed. If obesity is classified as a disease, according to this definition, it is implied that individuals have no responsibility for being obese, it happens completely random. However, the obese hold full responsibility for their appearance and by no means is obesity accidental or random. Obesity is a self-imposed condition brought about by destruction. Otis Kramer and Nancy Sprague declare that obesity is the result of consuming excess calories and not engaging in enough physical activity (par. 7). Overweight people are aware of the gradual physical changes to their body before becoming obese. By no means does obesity happen accidentally, it can almost always be prevented. An increase in food intake will always require an increase in physical activity. It is irrational to claim that obesity happens randomly and individuals have no responsibility for being obese.

Many human beings living in the 21st Century are obese or have a problem with obesity. A person is considered obese if they have a BMI of 30 or more. To be obese means you have an excess amount of body fat that can harm your physical and mental health. For most individuals in the population, obesity results from multiple genetic and environmental factors that may interact with, or may be correlated with, each other (Faith, 1970). To unravel the causes and effects of obesity in human beings there are two significant factors to examine; the two factors are genetics and the environment. Genetics and the environment have many different aspects connected with them when it

Obesity is unusual or excessive fat accumulation that affects the health of human beings. It is connected with disorders such as hypertension and diabetes. Obesity is also a state of imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. Moreover, genetics plays a greater role in the etiology of obesity with the tendency of increasing weight easily until it exceeds 10% than recommended for individual height and body type. Obesity commonly begins at the adolescence age (Freedman, 2007). Studies have shown that those who suffer from the condition at this early age are at higher risk of becoming obese at the adult age. The deeper cause of obesity is attributed to some factors like calories consumed and calories exhausted. The increase in this condition is due to the increase of consumption of energy-dense food that is high in fat but low in vitamins. Another stimulating factor of obesity is due to the decrease in physical exercise because of varying areas of occupation and increased urbanization (Ogden et al. 2014). Obesity is also caused by environmental factors such as food prices where the readily accessible, economical food contains many fatty components. Many of the health professionals indicated that genetics and metabolism are among factors contributing to the rise in obesity. Doctors agree that obesity is growing primarily because of behavioral changes,

Multiple variables cause obesity. There is not one factor that could have been linked to the cause of this serious health issue alone because causation does not prove correlation. This means…….Factors can be genetic or externally influenced. If obesity is genetic, then it cannot be controlled, but on the other hand, if it can be controlled, then obesity was influenced by the environment. Children can inherit genes that lead to obesity and eventually, diabetes. Some mutated genes have been discovered that contributes to obesity; however, none of the mutated genes can cause the health issue alone (PMC). A person with a family history of obesity is double or triple of becoming overweight compared to those who do not have one. A

Obesity can also be caused by a genetic characteristic that increases a person’s body to accept excess body weight. This disease occurs due to an imbalance between the calories a child may eat as food and drinks and calories used to support normal childhood development. “Studies of identical twins who have been raised apart show that genes have a strong influence on a person's weight. “Overweight and obesity tend to run in families.

Obesity today is the most common form of malnutrition in America. As many as “30 percent of young men and 20 percent of young women are significantly overweight”, the situation rising to “over 50 percent in both sees from the age of 40 upward”.(Anderson 389) In America, obesity is a health problem that many