The Chief Causes of Obesity As we all know the obesity has become a great problem for many people around the world. A research shows that 34.9% of adults in the United States are obese, and the money used for health problems relating to obesity has greatly increased. The estimated cost was $147 billion in 2008, and the cost for obese people were $1,429 higher than normal people (cdc.gov). There are a lot of factors which makes many Americans obese. The chief causes of obesity are bad food choices and the reliance on the industrial food chain, and the government, the food companies and people are responsible for it. The main reason people started making bad food choices because they do not know the information of the food they eat. Most …show more content…
If there is no healthy food in those places, people have no choice but to eat what is available. In his article, Zinczenko says “Lunch and dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut” (391). He also emphasizes that he weighed 212 pounds by age 15 (392). There is little food choice for parents who’re working and also “latchkey” kids who are left at homes, so they started eating fast food which is convenient and easily accessible. Therefore, eventually they become the victims of obesity. In addition to people making bad food choices, there are food industries which care only about their profit but not peoples’ health. Most of the obese people are from the poor community. They eat fast food because it is so cheap and it also contain a lot of energy rich ingredients. As a result, they become obese with the increase cost in health care. In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, Michael Pollan explains that from the beginning of the industrial food chain to the end, “It’s All Corn” (10). Corn is involved in production animal feed, HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), processed food and even fuel (45). Therefore, big companies invented genetically modified corn seeds to ensure producing the best yield of corn every season and sell it to farmers, and farmers started growing corn instead of healthy
Shifts in the “Food Marketplace” have greatly affected our food choices and habits in the last 40-50 years. As one woman stated in the film The Weight of the Nation, “It’s so hard to combat with what the tv is telling you to feed your kids”. Advertising has come to a whole new level in our generation; you can’t turn on the television without seeing an advertisement for fast food or something equally as unhealthy. As another woman put it, “you are taught that you can eat anywhere, anytime of day, and that eating is a glorious thing”. Another shift that has occurred is an economic one. If you go into a poor neighborhood corner store like they did in the film, you would see chips, sugar, sweets, etc. All of these unhealthy foods are cheap, incredibly cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables. Obesity rates in these poor areas are much higher than in areas with a higher average income. Culturally, our country is changing to one that is always moving; we don’t have time to prepare a meal for the whole family. It’s much quicker to buy unhealthy fast food that you know your family will enjoy than to prepare a healthy meal that they will grudgingly consume. The film mentioned that our bodies were originally built for scarcity. We are wired to react to things that are sweet and contain a lot of fat because when an animal was killed we had to be able to eat as much of it as possible. The signals telling us to stop eating had to be overridden. Now, we consume so much fat and sugar not
In America today one in three adults are considered to be obese. Over the years the rate of obesity keeps climbing up and up. Some people blame fast-food or the environment Americans live in. After all,someone can purchase a chocolate bar at a bookstore nowadays. But, most people are looking at the incorrect factor to blame. Although the food industry is a huge contribution to obesity in America, people are ultimately responsible for their own health.
Corn is not the ideal nutritious food. It wreaks havoc on the animal;s' digestive system and gets turned into sweeteners that makes people obese, aside from giving us an unhealthy diet. In other words, the industrial food chain that American man is sustained on is largely based on corn, whether in its direct form, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose, and the cheapest forms of these are high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol. The former, particularly, through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors, appears in the cheapest and most common of foods that constitute the American diet. It is the ingredient that results in obesity, and, since it appears in the cheapest products, the ingredients that more poor, than wealthier individuals, consume.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess fats have grown and accumulated to the point of harm, and a shortened life expectancy. Obesity is a problem that has been more prominent in the 20th and 21st century and is now a main concern for both society and the government. It is the citizen’s duty to resolve this epidemic known as obesity in the United States.
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
Now obesity is at its highest rates because of the fatty and starch filled foods of today. The country is overweight because of the industrialization of agriculture and trying to be tightwads and holding on to money that should be spent on providing healthy food choices. There was a wonderful example that was give that said “The McNugget was fried in a corn based grease, that same corn was what fed the chicken that the meat came from, and more of that corn was used to bread the chicken.” Now that is a lot to think
In the United States, there are many people who believe that if it wasn’t for fast food restaurants, they would be eating healthier and wouldn’t be overweight. People have even tried to sue fast food restaurants for their own self esteem issues. It’s ironic that people actually blame fast food restaurants, such as McDonald’s, for being obese. While fast food may be one of the contributors to the obesity outbreak, it certainly doesn’t stand alone. There are loads of reasons why people living in the United States are overweight. Some of these reasons involve dilemmas within the school arrangements, peer pressure, family genetics, educational issues, and even where a person lives. The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health
The current rate of obesity in the United States is at 35.7% which is one third of our population and is expected to increase to over half (50%) by 2030. So many individuals who are obese really do not even know that they are. They tend to be so set in their lifestyle, being overweight just becomes part of the norm. Many factors come in to play with obesity. The environment we are in is the greatest factor of all. Our very busy lives would be a major contributor to this theory. With all that is going on in peoples’ lives, there is very little time for good,
In many first world countries, obesity is a reoccurring problem. According to the National Institutes of Health, around two thirds of the United States population is obese and of that fraction, six percent are morbidly obese. Many factors lead to Americans becoming overweight, such as foods with high fructose and fat being more affordable than fruits or vegetable and people not being as active as the energy building up inside of them. The unhealthy lifestyle is promoted every day as a people drive down the interstate or turn on the television and sees billboards and commercials for McDonalds, Burger King, and Culvers. People have come to realize how cheap and quick these alternatives stand compared to a home cooked meal. As the
When it comes to people health, what usually comes up in mind? People may think of some disease, such as cancer or stroke, but nobody thinks about Obesity, which has become one of the biggest issues in America. Obesity is the accumulation of unnecessary body fat. It is a lifestyle disease that is spreading fast worldwide. This disease is affecting individuals of all age, ethnicity, and gender. As we all know, America has an extended history of solving complex problems, but it seems like obesity has stuck with the American people. In the essay, called Politicians Want to tax us Thin, written by Kyle Smith, she states, “We know obesity is a problem, but just to be sure we need to spend more resources to study it” (501). Smith says that somehow we are unsuccessful to solve the problem of obesity, and it’s affecting many people all over the world. Many people’s problems are due to their bad habits: they do not care to read the labels of what they eat, and they do not think what is natural and healthy for them before they eat. People pass such habits to their children, as it is predictable, and now childhood obesity is also becoming a rising issue. Many factors contribute to the causes of obesity in America while health officials and scientists all agree on the more general causes including lack of exercise, eating junk food, and family lifestyle.
Obesity is not just a cosmetic concern; it also increases your risk for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and muscular skeletal disorders. It is estimated that obesity affects more than a third of the American adult population and seventeen percent of the American children population (Moores, 2005). Obesity has many definitions; one of the many definitions is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have a negative effect on health. Obesity is a chronic disease, that can happen from many things, a few of those causes will be discussed throughout this essay. Obesity is calculated by body mass index. This body mass index is calculated a little
Many people speculate that obesity is genetic, but is it? Is childhood obesity caused by a lack of exercise, an unhealthy diet, or both? Obese people, or more commonly referred to as fat people or overweight people, are defined as adults who’s BMI (body mass index) is over 30 percent. There have always been overweight people in human society, but the rate of growth for this percentage of our population has been steadily rising in the last few decades. When it comes to the topic of obesity, most of us will readily agree that it is a problem. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of why it is happening. Whereas some are convinced that this trait is genetic, others maintain that people become obese simply due to diet and lack of exercise. In discussions of overweight children, one controversial issue has been who is at risk. On the one hand, A. Cattaneo argues that “…excess adiposity is a key risk factor for many chronic diseases.” On the other hand, Reilly, J. J. contends that there is a “…need for practical, objective, methods that both identify the fattest children and adolescents adequately, and identify those who are at greatest risk of the ‘co-morbidities’ of obesity.” Others even maintain these traits are genetic and obese people are not more at risk than others. My own view is obesity is not inherited genetically, and that maintaining a proper diet and exercising can
In the past, everyone ate freshly prepared healthy meals that were made at home with their families. Nowadays, people tend to eat out more and are eating very unhealthy food, like pizza, burgers, fried chicken or ice cream. There are many reasons as to why people eat out more, such as just not having the time or supplies to cook because of work, a busy schedule or not having enough money. This is what causes people to eat out more and now because of that, there are many children out there that are not getting the proper nutrition they need and are eating all types of unhealthy food and that can lead to many problems like obesity. They get so used to eating so much junk and processed food at fast food restaurants that it starts to affect their bodies in many bad ways. Now, everybody that eats fast food could end up with three negative side effects in their daily lives and they are depression, heart disease, or high cholesterol.
We are conditioned at a young age to believe the only way to be normal is to be
Obesity according to Birmingham and Treasure "means there is an excess of adipose tissue (fat) in the body" (195). Today, hardly a day goes without the mention of an obesity related issue in the news. In a way, obesity is increasingly becoming a national epidemic. As medical practitioners debate on whether or not obesity should be regarded a disease, policy makers are mulling over what course of action should be adopted so as to rein in the problem of obesity. In an attempt to bring to the fore the need for decisive measures aimed at bringing down obesity rates, the following sections of this text will address the causes and effects of obesity.