The Terror of Obesity

Obesity is known as a condition where a person has excessive fat in their body and it is also defined as being a genetic and environmental factor, which can occur to anyone from child to adult. It is a factor where people eat the wrong foods and do not watch their diet. Obesity or overweight is a very dangerous disease because it can be the leading cause of diabetes, hypertension and even sleep apnea and many more symptoms can be caused by the disease.

How many times a week do you go out to McDonald 's or Taco Bell for dinner? If you go more than once or twice a week then you really need to look at your diet and how healthy your lifestyle is. America is having a huge obesity crisis, too many Americans just don’t care about how much they weigh or unhealthy their lifestyle is. From the advertisement of the fast food companies, to people not being able to afford healthier foods, and people just being plain lazy, America has an increasing population of morbidly obese people.

More than half of adults in the United States are considered to be overweight or obese. America is becoming unhealthy and it needs to change. Adults should exercise daily. Daily exercise can stimulate happiness, prevent or delay disease, and affects health positively. First, exercise causes the brain to be more alert which has a positive impact on the human body, creating a great feeling psychologically that can be associated with happiness. The world will be a happier place with happy people. Furthermore, disease is a large epidemic today, but did you know that daily exercise can help prevent or delay disease? Doctors could diagnose their patients sooner rather than later, resulting in a healthier treatment plan and then a healthier Earth. Finally, daily exercise is just an overall helpful key to good health. The less fat an adult has on his body, the healthier he could potentially be. With that being said, hours and hours of physical activity are not needed, but as little as 15 minutes a day could benefit human lifespan. Overall, adults should exercise daily because exercise stimulates happiness, can prevent or delay disease, and affects health positively.

Once upon a time, women were celebrated for their curves. Weight was a symbol of wealth and fertility in a woman. During this time, women were subjugated to being a housewife and nothing more. As time and society progressed, a woman’s prison became her body and no longer her home. Women had the freedom to vote, work, play, but could no longer be fat. This new beauty standard of thinness affects women in many ways. In “Add Cake, Subtract Self Esteem” written by Caroline Knapp, she describes her own personal experience on how this impossible standard affects women’s eating which leads to eating disorders and an unhealthy relationship with food. In “The Beauty Myth” written by Naomi Wolf, she describes the mental effects on women from a

According to the media article, Whose Fault is our Fat? Obesity solely stems from Americans not participating in enough physical activity. On the other hand, Family Stressors and Child Obesity, attributes the stem of childhood obesity to stressors, particularly family stressors. Another possible explanation for obesity, other than Americans not getting enough physical activity or stressors, comes from the movie, watched in lecture, The Weight of the Nation. This movie makes the connection of rates of obesity to living in poverty areas. The movie also firmly believes that Americans are turning to quick, processed, and readily made meals, instead of healthy food options.

As many Americans know, there is currently an obesity epidemic that is sweeping the nation. With more food advertisements, bigger portion sizes, and Americans eating more calories than ever before; Linder makes his viewpoint very clear on how this is negatively affecting our nation. In his article “Fat of the Land”, Linder looks at all of the possible leading factors on who is to blame on the current situation in resulting of more than 60% of adults in America being overweight. The main contributing people to blame for the obesity epidemic is of course, the fast food industry. Linder’s main argument starts with his comparison of American’s calorie intake in the 1950’s, than comparing it to today. With stating the other side’s viewpoint on while advertisements and marketing are always surrounding the world around us; it is not forcing us to do anything. With his basic statement claiming that people will be people and at the end of the day, it’s their decision if they want to eat that 1,000 calorie filled Big Mac from McDonalds. Linder does a substantial job at informing the reader about the many dangers causing obesity, while also persuading them by giving tips to lead a well-balanced, healthier lifestyle.

As Americans we have made food not only a way to live but all help us with life events, whether emotional times or celebratory events we turn to food. However our society has been consumed with unhealthy food options readily available. This has in turn caused a huge medical epidemic in America. Obesity has and will put people at risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some types of cancer. More than one-third of American adults are obese (Ogden et al., 2012). By looking in depth at the obesity epidemic in America through the three major sociological perspectives (structural functionalist, social conflict, and symbolic interactionist) we are able to better discern this medical issue impacting the health of American people.

Fed up is a documentary that investigates the recent obesity epidemic; the obesity epidemic is considered “recent” because there has been a steady rise in obese and overweight Americans since the 1980s. This film formulates its analysis of United States’ obesity epidemic by denouncing US politics and the food industry for their immensely adverse influence on America’s overall health. Moreover, there was also an emphasis on the science of obesity and childhood obesity.

Obesity should not be an unknown term to the majority of the Americans as a significant percentage of the American population is obese. As the number of obese people skyrockets annually, obesity tends to be a major threat not just in America, but globally. The number of obese individuals has doubled in past four decades, probably by practicing the art of super-sizing (Marks). Obesity is a complex physical problem in which a person weighs 20% or more in addition to his normal body weight for given height and age and Body Mass Index (BMI) which includes those of 30 and

The startling epidemic of rising obesity rates has caught everyone off guard considering that in the book “Obesity Dietary and Developmental Influences” it states that almost two-thirds of the current population is overweight or obese (Lopez 2). Considering that many adults and children are struggling with their weight, many experts try to pinpoint the exact culprit for the obesity rates and ways it can be diminished. The focus of this paper is to discuss who exactly is to blame for the rising obesity rates and different ways it could decrease based on certain author’s point of views. This is important because if the rates do not stop increasing, people will suffer whether its financially or medically. Many people often argue over which

Obesity has always been a topic that many have had due to the increase attention it has received. Across America, there has been a lot of attention on the obesity epidemic. In America and the inner cities, more people are eating meals away from home in addition to consuming larger portions from fast food restaurants. At this rate, gaining weight is the likely outcome. High energy dense food has become convenient and affordable. Fast food is almost everywhere in America and, contributes to the growing obesity epidemic. Access to healthy foods are either expensive or have a limited access to it. For example, soda is everywhere for low costs, but coconut water is expensive or not found easily depending on the demand for it. Our environment

America's children are not getting enough exercise, and the health risks due to obesity are becoming epidemic in nature. Even First Lady Michelle Obama is supporting an initiative to help children become more active and to provide for exercise (at least 30-60 minutes per day) in all schools. Even limited amounts of exercise can have great health benefits. When humans exercise, the brain produces chemicals that help enhance mood, limit cravings for sugars, and contribute to healthier joints, muscles, the heart, and kidneys. In turn, this translates into more productive work time, the ability to sleep better, increase memory, and reduce dependence on medications. Children are so vulnerable to this health risk that if it continues, over 60% of graduating seniors will be clinically obese. Written by a medical journalist, the book is designed for the lay reader but has a number of documented scholarly sources.

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.

The physical body has been seen as many things both positive and negative. It can be thought of as the temple which houses the soul or can be seen as entrapping, like a cage of flesh. More often it seems that the body, especially women’s bodies, are looked at in more complicated ways than the bodies of men. As I grew up, it began to feel more and more like my body, and the bodies of other women, did not actually belong to us like we believed. Through my Women’s Studies class I have gained more knowledge on the body as a political object. In this essay I will examine six different articles with the similar theme of women’s bodies, the expression of those bodies and how by using feminism as a political standpoint they gain power and ownership of their bodies.

In the patriarchal factory, female bodies enter and docile, obedient, feminine women exit. Since “we are born male or female but not masculine or feminine,” the patriarchal factory enacts different kinds of norms on male or female bodies (Bartky 27). But this factory is not a metaphor for one institution in society today; the factory that reduces individuals to docile and subjected bodies is omnipresent. In this paper, Sandra Lee Bartky successfully uses Foucault’s description of ‘docile bodies’ to explain women’s involvement with the patriarchal standards of femininity. She criticizes Foucault for not readily discussing the engendered way in which bodies are made docile. Her argument centers around the discussion that patriarchal power whispers its way into the minds of its subjects, borrowing so deep that it is difficult to image how they (and by extension, we) might escape its control. However, throughout my reading of her paper, I was plagued with the question of: how? How can we resist this insidious whispering? If it is omnipresent, should it be up to feminists to create a space without it? While Bartky effectively critiques Foucault, the lack of a solution to the problem Bartky poses left me with more questions than answers.