Food teaches, or illustrates, something meaningful about life, health, family, and culture. Although food keeps us alive there are many ways we misuse food. We can use the mistreatment of food to learn about our family, our health, and our culture. Abuse and mistreatment of food looks different for each person based on our culture and experiences in life. Ever since I was little, my family looked towards food for comfort. The most prominent time that sticks out to me was when my mom passed away. We were filling the void of our loss with the food we were deciding to eat. We weren’t eating healthy and we didn’t really care what was going into our bodies or how much we were putting in. Along with not eating healthy, we weren’t exercising or watching …show more content…
I went for a physical shortly after her passing, and my body mass index, or BMI, was in the overweight section for my age. Also, my cardiologist had told me numerous times to try and eat healthy and watch what I ate, so from that point forward I decided I was going to try my best to eat better. Overeating has taught me that I should only eat when it was necessary. Binging has taught me that I should eat smaller proportions, as well as watch what I put into my stomach. Overindulging with food has educated me to the many diseases and other health problems it can bring later in …show more content…
The United States is one of the most obese countries in the world. This shows us that many people look towards food to fill voids, to de-stress themselves, for convenience, and for various other reasons. This also shows that countless Americans do not try to stop their bad habits until it is too late. This highlights that many of them have the mentality of “it won’t happen to me”. When they do develop a disease, or become obese they wish they would’ve done something about it. This also brings up the issue of many generations acting and thinking this way due to their parents’ lack of knowledge and understanding. This causes their children to grow up thinking and acting the same way towards food and potentially walking the same path as their parents did with food. Obesity has become a growing infection plaguing the world and its children. A simple forty-five-minute exercise everyday can reduce the risk of heart disease, a disease in which I struggle with daily and has become a never ending battle. If American’s would make eating properly and exercising regularly a priority, their lives would be
Obesity is a serious epidemic that majority of Americans face. The dangerous of obesity should not be taken lightly and addressed admittedly. However, the big question is how or why do some individuals stay skinny or become fat. The movie Weight of The Nations, Part 2: choice helps us explore this unanswered question to give us a better understanding of how this problem has gotten so out of control. This movie targets the obese society in America. This documentary uses scientist to research and address techniques to help people prevent weight gain and loss unhealthy weight. Most Americans want quick fixes to this problem, but have to realize big changes take time, but offer big results. Over all, the idea is to get people motivated by positive results to live a healthier live style.
It is natural for a society to be concerned for the future generations. With the rate of obesity growing in adults and children, many begin to see it as an issue that needs to be addressed. New reports show “ childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years” (cdc.gov). Overweight and obese are not actually the same. Overweight is defined as “having excess body weight for a particular height from fat,” and obesity is defined as “having excess body fat” (cdc.gov). With obesity comes the chance for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Both can be
In Food & Nutrition: Customs & Culture written by Paul Fieldhouse1, Fieldhouse summarizes many of the issues that coincide with growing rates of obesity. After great evaluation of the psychological aspects of food choice, Fieldhouse recognizes the affect social norms within American culture have on imperfect eating practices. It appears that physicality is utilized to make judgments of one’s eating habits rather than overall health status. He believes the nation’s mission to lower occurrences of obesity is mainly to decrease future health problems, but this also underscores the cultural norm of thinness in the U.S. “Although the considerable effort which is devoted to treatment and prevention of obesity is predicated largely on the desirability of preventing physical health problems, it is at least pa...
One of the trends that keeps growing is trying to stay fit and to get healthy. Many people have become dedicated to working out daily, cutting back on calories, and staying away from fast food, but yet the United States is still faced with a huge obesity epidemic. The United States has some of the highest obesity rates compared to other countries, but what are these other countries doing to cut back on obesity? Michael Pollan, the author of “Escape from the Western Diet” and Mary Maxfield, author of “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” both explain various points about the issue of being healthy and eating better in America. Pollan believes nutrition and scientific theories are the problems of the Western Diet. Maxfield explains how culture influences how people eat and their views on being healthy.
Michael Pollan makes arguments concerning the eating habits of the average American. Pollan suggests, in spite of our cultural norms, we should simply “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”
Today there is an epidemic of obesity adults and children in America. The overweight adults and children attend to watch tv, play video games, internet, and electronic devices seem to be the blames. Today families do not cook meals instead they seem to be buying fast food and unhealthy process foods. It’s how we choose what we eat put in our mouths Cost of healthy eating is more expensive than buying food that is not healthy.
Some people fail to see the true impact childhood obesity can have on a child's life. Children tending to overeat; they don’t understand that something that tastes so yummy could actually be bad for them. And with the cheaper pre-processed food usually being unhealthier calorie choices, people are unwilling to buy the more expensive fruits or vegetables that are required to build a good nutritional foundation. Plus, every generation has something that rubs off on the next generation; obesity is something that repeats through multiple generations, making the problems worse. “Parental attitudes to food, along with the kind of eating and leisure activities engaged in as a family and the level of support, are prim...
Do you struggle with health problems or anxiety? If so, do not worry, because you are not alone. Today, America is in the middle of a serious crisis. Many people are suffering from diseases that are directly related to the American Diet. An estimated sixty-one percent of Americans are deemed overweight, and about one-third of these are currently obese (cdc.gov). Throughout the country, the obesity epidemic has struck every population demographic. According to the Center of Disease Control, an estimated 248,000 Americans die prematurely every year owing to obesity. The Center also asserts that many more people die prematurely today owing to illnesses related to obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers. An even more ominous statistic is that the percentage of children and adolescents who are obese has doubled in the last twenty years (cdc.gov). In order to understand why obesity is on the sky rise in America, the average diet of Americans must be taken into consideration. In comparison to other countries, the American Diet is one of, if not the worst in terms of nutrition (Young 93). The unhealthy American Diet is a dietary habit that is highly associated with fast food, processed foods, soft drinks , and large portions, which explains why it has to change in order to save our country.
You are what you eat. The fact is many American’s are out to lunch when it comes to making healthy food choices. The obesity epidemic is affecting every man, woman, and child regardless of age, race, religion or geographic location. Obesity occurs in over one-third of adults age 20 or over (BMI ≥ 30)Body Mass Index. More remarkable is the dramatic weight increase in America’s adolescent youth. According to the NHANES 1999 - 2000 data, 15% of children ages 6-11 are overweight.(Obesity In America.
The Obesity Epidemic: A Lack of Self-Control According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “More than one-third of U.S. adults (34.9%) are obese” (“Adult Obesity”, 2014). Considering the wide amounts of freedom and choices that American citizens have, this number is startling. Americans have gone from being some of the most productive, hard-working people in the world, to ignorant, lazy citizens who take what they have for granted. It is simply shocking to look at a nation with the amounts of opportunity present in the United States, and see how lazy its’ people really are.
America is a capitalist society. It should come to a surprise when we live like this daily. We work for profit. We’ll buy either for pleasure or to sell later for profit. It should come to no surprise that our food is made the same way because we are what we eat. We are capitalist that eat a capitalist meal. So we must question our politics. Is our government system to blame for accepting and encouraging monopolies?
Over the past years, Americans have continued to double or even triple how much they weigh in the past two decades. Nearly two-thirds of Americans have been diagnosed as obese. “Nearly 78 million adults and 13 million children in the United States deal with the health and emotional effects of obesity every day” (American Heart Association). Millions of Americans have suffered from obesity due to portion sizes increasing in size, not getting the sufficient amount of exercise needed daily, or electronics getting in the way of people going outside and doing exercise. Type two diabetes, heart disease, bone joint disease are some of the side effects of being obese. All these reasons support why Americans, over the years, have gained an excessive
Anthony Bourdain states in his interview on Being Wrong, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, and your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” Food, in general, can bring people together, whether it is for social purposes, to celebrate or for religious reasons. A plate of food can help fuel our bodies with energy, enhance our moods, help us build relationships with others, open and expand our viewpoints on different cultures, and so much more. Overall food has a vast and strong impact in our everyday life, making us feel certain emotions that influence our mental and physical health. The
The huge talk in the nation is the issue on obesity. More than one third of the U.S population is considered obese and the numbers are only growing more enormous with everyone within our society feeling the weight. Hundreds of thousands of children as young as 8 years have been diagnosed with heart disease and type-2 diabetes resulting from obesity. Additionally, people who've been deprived socioeconomically overall have poorer health, which is often correlated to obesity. Johnny Lund, a health official and full-time babysitter, states “If we do not act on this issue immediately, our fatty attitude will become ingrained into our culture.”
Currently the United States is “home to the highest number of overweight and obese people in the world” (Matthews). Eating healthy is a struggle most Americans deal with. Though struggles do happen along the way, it is beneficial for one's self and the society we live in to eat healthy. If we carefully help others around us, it is inevitable that your peers will start picking up on the minor changes in your eating style. Influencing others to create overall healthy habits eventually leads to healthy lifestyles.