...Obesity Epidemic Everywhere people turn weight loss is an issue. There are countless television commercials or advertisements speaking of ways to lose weight. The question is why have Americans become obsessed with weight loss? The answer lies in the fact America has become an obese country. According to an article published by Robert Pool, “Obesity and overweight now affect more than 50 percent of adult Americans.”[1] This is a staggering number. Everywhere people look or turn their see an overweight individual. Obesity has become an acceptable norm in today’s society. Canadian doctor’s Lau, Morrison, Shamara, and Ur concluded that “before the 20th century obesity was rare.”[2] Americans have become so obese that in “1997 the WHO recognized obesity as a global epidemic.[3] Because the number of cases of obesity are on the rise, obesity and weight loss have become a billion dollar industry. Obesity is an abnormal accumulation of body fat, usually 20% or more over an individual’s ideal body weight. Twenty to 40% percent over ideal weight is said to be mildly obese; 40-100% over ideal weight is said to be moderately obese; and over 100% ideal weight is said to be severely, or morbidly obese. Approximately 300,000 deaths a year are attributed to obesity. Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. The money spent on obesity has increased in the last several years. Obesity leads to many different medical and physical problems. High...
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...Obesity in America Rough Draft Jeremy Stewart ENG 122 English Composition II Instructor: Jennifer Chagala October 02, 2014 Obesity in America It is a shame that more people die in the United States from eating too much food, while in other countries people die from not having enough. Obesity is a rising health epidemic across the nation, and it is a duel responsibility of the government as well as society to do all that they can, starting in the individual home to encourage healthy eating in order to reverse this development and preserve the next generation. Obesity has officially become an epidemic in America. It is debatably one the most noticed public health problems that America faces today. In 2009,...
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...Obesity has been a nationwide epidemic that has led to many concerns for current and future generations. Indeed, this is gearing more towards children than adults. Depending on age, height, and weight, people have a different Body Mass Index (BMI). Obesity could be considered the primary cause of many other illnesses such as Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart disease, and even death. The American government has taken urgent action to the problems of obesity, and has looked at potential ways to fight the epidemic. For example, in the year 2013 America tried to implicate a new taxation law on unhealthy foods called the “Fat Tax”. Any foods that were high in fats were going to have higher tax rates. However, could this taxation really have...
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...The American Obesity Epidemic Obesity, a condition in which the body has an excessive accumulation of stored fat, is an epidemic plaguing the United States. A person is obese if their body mass index (BMI) is thirty percent or higher. According to recent statistics, more than 91.3 million Americans are obese. While not exclusive factors, diet, lifestyle, and education are causes that contribute greatly to the obesity epidemic, and can have severe consequences for not only the individual, but also for the United States. One of the main causes of obesity is improper diet. More than fifty-one percent of Americans eat processed foods that are high in fat, sugar, carbohydrates, and calories. These processed foods are typically packaged foods purchased at the grocery store, and foods purchased at fast food restaurants. Along with eating unhealthy foods, people in the United States tend to eat large portions. Numerous studies have proven that a combination of eating the aforementioned foods and eating large portions, contributes greatly to obesity. So why is it that more than half of the American population chooses to eat large amounts of food that contain such unhealthy ingredients? A majority of Americans turn to packaged foods and fast food restaurants due to their fast-paced lifestyles. Due to the decrease in unskilled labor, more Americans are in skilled professions that generally require more hours worked in a sedentary job with little to no exercise. If you combine...
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...Obesity, a condition of an excessively high proportion of body fat, is associated with elevated risks of cancer to occur throughout the body. Obesity is also a risk factor for coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic illnesses. Americans currently have the cheapest food in history when measured as a fraction of disposable income. Along with the real decreases in food cost, per capita food availability has increased. Consequently, this smaller share of disposable income now buys many more calories, leading to the increase of obesity. The obesity epidemic has been fueled by historically low food prices relative to income. In the United States alone, an estimated 34,000 new cases of cancer among men (4%)...
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...Many lives of the average day high school teenager is juratically being affected by the growing obesity epidemic. This is thought to be caused by the stereotyped lazy inactive lifestyle of a teenager. This is false and is a common misconception. The truth behind the causes of the growing obesity epidemic can be found in Mark Bittman’s article “Bad Food? Tax it”, the documentary, “Food INC”, and can also be seen in statistics. In order to reduce this growing obesity and heart disease epidemic, we must make healthy foods accessible and cheaper and also tax junk foods higher. Junk foods are the foods of choice for many teenagers due to its lower price and its availability compared to healthier choices. Unhealthy junk foods require little to...
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...Why is this generation so unhealthy? What is the reason for the insane amount of overweight young adults today? The obesity epidemic is directly affecting young people in America today. This generation is the first to experience growing up with it being “normal” to be overweight because it has become so common. American’s lifestyle has changed and so has eating habits. Many know what needs to be done: eat healthy and exercise. But it can be more difficult than just that. Educating people about how and what to eat plays an important role in this. Many people simply do not know how to eat right, or are unaware of what they are actually consuming. Also, every person has a different body type so different foods and exercise may work more efficiently...
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...Introduction 1.1 Purpose What is obesity, how do people get it, what are the impacts and cost, how are we treating it and how can we treat it? This Report will not only answer these questions but evaluate obesity in Australia as well as Terrace and what programs are in place to help minimize this current health epidemic. The purpose of this report is to not only inform readers on the current issue and provide programs to help assist sufferers with obesity but it aims to prevent obesity before it starts. 1.2 Scope Australia is healthier than ever, with men expected to live 80.4 years and women expected to live 85.5 years. However, new studies show that 28% of Australians were diagnosed as obese and close to 2 in 3 people are overweight...
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...Obesity is a problem in America today, and it needs to be fixed. It turns out about 50 percent of the American population is considered obese, and its still heading that direction. What might be a perfect explanation as eating too much food and too little exercise might be one of the many reasons, but it turns out obesity is led by many other habits such as; chronic stress, sleep deprivation, laziness, or reason like not having a local grocery store close by can cause high risk of becoming overweight and even obese. There an obesity epidemic in American that can be stopped by affordable life changes that can save a lifetime, by changing diet habits, increasing physical activity having a faster access to fresh food with fewer visits to fast...
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...Obesity: A Global Epidemic Introduction This analysis dives deep into the rising trend of obesity, and is designed to juxtapose the actions of McDonald’s corporation and the increasing trend of consumer preference of organic, healthy products. The market of food consumers is becoming increasingly health-focused although the simultaneous increases in obesity in almost all countries seem to be driven mainly by changes in the global food system, which is producing more processed, affordable, and effectively marketed food than ever before (Swinburn, 137). If fast-food chains such as McDonald’s ignore these changes in consumer knowledge and preferences, they will not survive the onslaught of other, new companies who now seek to bring fast, healthy food to the consumer’s table. Many of the labels that Label Print Technologies (LPT) produces are for smaller, organic food manufacturers who seek to bring a healthy product to their customers. The growth of the organic product industry has created large areas of growth in many different industries; the label industry is ripe for the picking and LPT is ready to act. Where once there were big manufacturers looking to have hundreds of thousands of labels produced at once, there are now smaller, health-focused companies looking for more intricately designed labels to adorn their high quality products, and not necessarily in mass quantity. Obesity is defined as fat accumulation that may impair health. The World Health Organization...
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...The black plague has killed more than fifty million people. By conservative estimate, that would be one out of every ten American dead. But that was over six hundred years ago in Europe. Today is the modern world and many people have access to quality health care. America has abundance in food, so much so that people are dying from overeating. The scale of which can be considered unprecedented, very much like the black death. Many organization has called obesity an “epidemic” because a staggering one-third of American adult are obese. In a published study by RAND Health, obesity can be considered worse than smoking or poverty due to the magnitude of health problem it causes. People with obesity is linked to more chronic disease such...
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...Running Head: CHILDHOOD OBESITY 1 America’s Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Why It’s The Parent’s Responsibility Brian Rodgers ENG 122 Professor Higgins December 18, 2012 CHILDHOOD OBESITY 2 America’s Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Why It’s The Parent’s Responsibility As kids, most of us can remember an elderly adult harmlessly coming up and pinching our cute, pudgy cheeks. For something that at one time was considered cute, this act now represents a national epidemic threatening the health of our country’s youth. As the number of overweight and obese children drastically increases, new arguments are forming as to where the responsibility falls. Several states have begun developing laws that are including poor nutritional and lifestyle choices by parents in the category of neglect and abuse. As new studies and research pour in showing that obesity has a direct relation to multiple severe health issues, it has become increasingly common knowledge. With this era being deemed the “technology age”, finding this information is easy and accessible to just about every person in the United States. This new found access to information and the amount of information available showing obesity causes health problems and even death; parents have become responsible for monitoring their child’s...
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...The Obesity Epidemic; How Environment, Behavior and Policy Can Make a Difference. Beth Spangler, RN Environment and behavior are both out of control and have led to an epidemic of obesity. In the U.S. we see in every city, fast food availability on most every corner, making it a simple choice for a quick meal. If we combine that with increased technology of TV, computers, video games, all of which contributes to a sedentary lifestyle that has become the norm. What we have is a recipe for overweight and obesity. Policies must be made to intercede and change the direction of America’s spiraling weight and health problems. We must find a way to inspire people to make behavior changes within the current environment that are sufficient to resist the push of environmental factors toward weight gain. This will require conscious effort on the part of most people to make behavior choices that counteract the environmental pressure. (Hill, J.C., 2003) Many cities across America are adapting new policies to address the problems of environment and behavior. Policies for more nutritional education and increased availability of fresh healthy foods in schools are increasing. More parks and recreation centers are being built, especially in low income areas where they are few or absent. One of the national policies put into effect in the last few years, as part of the Health Care Reform Act, states “establishments with 20 or more locations nationwide must post calories in a clear and...
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...Introduction In this paper, I am arguing that the government owns the responsibility of putting an end to the obesity epidemic. First I will describe what the obesity epidemic is, secondly I will outline what research says about the causes of obesity, and thirdly I will talk about the individual agency of choice. What is the global obesity pandemic? According to the World Health Organization in 2008 (WHO, 2008), global obesity rates have doubled since 1980, reaching a record-breaking population of 1.4 billion overweight adults. This is 39% of the world’s population. At the more dangerous end of the spectrum lie over half a billion people who are clinically obese, capturing 13% of the world’s population (WHO). In fact, this issue is so vast,...
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...Obesity has become an epidemic in American Society. Since the nineteen eighties childhood obesity rates have tripled and have started in earlier in age. In high school students obesity rates have risen by fifteen percent. In four states obesity rates for adults have exceeded thirty five percent. Obesity is being portrayed as being beautiful, which people should be comfortable in their own skin, but the health effects that obesity causes is far from beautiful. Nearly seventy eight million adults and almost thirteen million children are obese in the United States. In the 1950's the percentage of obese adults was only ten percent, and has now risen to thirty five percent. An adult is averaged to weigh twenty six more pounds more than...
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