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Relationship between poverty and obesity
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In the United States, as of 2001, 34% of the population was overweight. (Townsend)
Overweight and obesity would seem to be problems associated with the United State’s wealth and
more than sufficient food supply. Much attention in recent years has been paid to people
becoming more physically fit and changing their diets to become healthier. Gastric bypass
surgery has become a popular choice for people trying to overcome extreme obesity. The
operation limits “food intake by creating a narrow passage from the upper part of the stomach
into the larger lower part, reducing the amount of food the stomach can hold and slowing the
passage of food through the stomach.” (NIDDK) The presence of this emphasis on health and
nutrition would seem to be the solution to our nation’s obesity problem. However of the
population with moderate food insecurity, 52% were overweight. (Townsend) Food insecurity
exists when the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire
acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain. Over half of the United
State’s population with a threat of hunger is overweight. Why would obesity be more prevalent
amongst this group of people with fewer resources?
Dieting and surgery do not address the problems of the economic groups with the most
severe weight and nutrition problems. Surgery is expensive, and people with limited resources
are not likely to buy expensive health foods when there are cheaper alternatives that satisfy
hunger. The “Dollar Menu” at McDonald’s is certainly less expensive than preparing a wellbalanced
meal. Another reason for obesity in lower income groups is a theory called the “food
stamp cycle” hypothesis. Food stamps and most paych...
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...urity and Obesity in Rural Women
http://ruralwomenshealth.psu.edu/s05_colson-cbove.html
Task Force for the Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty. Community with Children and
the Poor. Nashville, Tennessee: Cokesbury, 2003.
Townsend, Marilyn S., Janet Peerson, Bradley Love, cheryl Achterberg, and Suzanne P. Murphy
(2001). “Food Insecurity is Positively Related to Overweight in Women.” Journal of
Nutrition, 131, 1738-1745. The American Society for Nutritional Sciences.
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/131/6/1738
U.S. Conference of Mayors – Seduxho USA. Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2004. 3-5,42
http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/hungersurvey/2004/onlinereport/HungerAndHomelessness
Report2004.pdf
Weil, Andrew. Eating Well for Optimum Health. New York: Random House, 2000.
Willet, Walter C. Eat Drink and Be Healthy. New york: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
come along, this is when the bile is released to digest the fat. The same
Studies have linked obesity to many things from ear infections, to pollution, to air-conditioning, to socializing with obese people. The reason Americans are obese is because of the increasing luxury available to them. Obesity is a rising problem in the United States, and with all the privileges given to its citizens, the country has become increasingly lazy. With portion sizes rising and physical activity decreasing, it is easy to see how obesity rates have skyrocketed.
Although the two authors do not refer to each other directly in their works, both their perspectives share a common ground that no enough income make people eating less healthy. Pinsker argues that the actual barrier that stops people from eating healthy is the lack of income (129-130). He uses studies to show that poor families choose processed food because children like those tasty processed food (Pinsker 129-134). Whereas poor families cannot afford the waste if children refused to eat healthier but less tasty food parents provided (Pinsker 129-134). Cortright also suggests that income matters the most to why people do not eat healthy. He even further discusses income as the most influential limiting factor by addressing that other factors such as physical proximity to local food sources do not cause people to eat less healthy (Cortright 135-138). The two authors, in general, reach a consensus and mutually prove that income plays as the biggest limiting factor for people to have healthy
Throughout the video series “The Weight of the Nation” obesity is addressed several times, including how it as a disease has affected our economy for the worse. Although obesity has not drastically affected the states with higher income, those who live in states with lower income tend to be more negatively affected. In the first part of the video series, there was a study done by researchers in Tennessee proving that people with lower incomes are more negatively affected and prone to the disease of obesity. “If we don’t take on strategies that affect how the low income community is dealing with the obesity epidemic, we’re going to see this phenomenon across our society in a relatively short period of time.”
Purging was used as an indirect way of restricting food, when “forced” to eat by convenience, or avoidance of uncomfortable situations. This proves that eating is something under absolute control of the individual, because both by restricting food, and when obliged to eat, by vomiting that food, the individual is able to control what goes, and stays inside his or her body.
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services there have been a notably large number of deaths due to obesity since it leads into other diseases like heart disease, type two diabetes and high blood pressure. Over weight and obese people in general
People seem to be enjoying the current events and influx of knowledge in decision-making and the rise of the modern society that forfeits traditions and culture of the old. He denotes that the nutritional world has been impact negatively. In his article “The Worst Mistake in History of the Human Race” he strongly points that the old ways of practicing nutrition were much between as compared to the current world. The article begins by highlighting the various beliefs which people have long been exposed to since tender ages. For instance, he mentions that people have been taught to understand that various origins of the universe and human creation. He thus compares the same with the changes in the current global society. Yet, the question remains are these changes meant for good or are they a mistake to the human
The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) (2012) stated that “obesity plagues low-income people in this country just as hunger and food insecurity do” (para. 4). Due to predetermined budgets and the proliferating cost of food, individuals will sporadically condense their intake or omit meals to extend their food budget. This manner or pattern of consuming food triggers people to overindulge when sustenance does become obtainable, resulting in habitual ups and downs in food consumption that prom...
Today, 78.1 million American adults and 12.5 million children are obese. Obesity in America is a unstoppable epidemic. Since the 1960s, the number of obese adults have doubled and the number of obese children have tripled. Because of America’s obesity problems, Surgeon General David Satcher issued a report saying; "The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight," said that obesity "have reached epidemic proportions" in America. Obesity in America has no doubt reached epidemic proportions. Since 2001, America has been the most obese country in the world. This essay discusses what obesity is and how it is affecting today’s America by answers the following questions:
According to the USDA, at the start of century 21st American people have increased their daily caloric intake by consuming five hundred calories more than in 1970. As cited by Whitney & Rolfes (2011), there are many recognized causes of obesity such as genetics, environment, culture, socioeconomic, and metabolism among others; but the cause most evident is that food intake is higher than the calories burned in physical activity. Excess of energy from food is stored in the body as fat causing an increase of weight. During the course of the last 40 years, obesity has grown enormously in the United States and the rates remain on the rise (pgs. 272-273).
Since 1970, the obesity rates in America have more than doubled. Currently two-thirds of (roughly 150 million) adults in the United States are either overweight, or obese (Food Research and Action Center). According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, “overweight is defined as a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25 whereas obesity is defined as a BMI greater than 30.” There are numerous factors that contribute to obesity such as: biological, behavioral and cultural influences (Food Research and Action Center). While these factors all have a large role in obesity, there is no factor with as great of an influence as poverty.
Furthermore, Abdularhman El-Sayed (2010) also argues that the real reason for the obesity epidemic is down to poverty and cheap food. He describes a study conducted by one university of Glasgow which found that deprived neighbourhoods are twice as likely of becoming obese compare to residents in more affluent neighbourhoods, (El-Sayed 2010).
Individual problems such as addictions, illnesses and mental depression stalk us throughout our lives, but there is more to addictions, illnesses and mental depression than meets the eye. A good example of this theory is obesity. Obesity in Australia is turning into a problem and as the rates of obesity increase each year, the larger the problem expands. According to sociologist, C. Mills, problems can be divided into either troubles or issues and more often than not, a problem which is seen as a person trouble, when looked at globally, is in fact a social issue. This idea is referred to by C.Mills as the sociological imagination.
Therefore, people tend to go to McDonalds to have a Big Mac rather than getting healthier food. According to Fryar and Ervin (2013), “in the youngest age group, 20–39, the percentage of calories consumed from fast food significantly decreased with increasing income level.” In this case, people that have lower income tend to have more unhealthy food because they cannot afford healthy food.
Over the course of the last few decades, the U.S. has seen a drastic rise in the spread of obesity. Through the rise of large-scale fast food corporations, the blame has shifted toward the mass consumerism of these global industries. It is, however, due to poor lifestyle choices that the U.S. population has seen a significant increase in the percentage of people afflicted with obesity. In 1990 the percentage of obese people in the United States was approximated at around 15%. In 2010, however, it is said that “36 states had obesity rates of 25 percent or higher”(Millar). These rates have stayed consistent since 2003. The obesity problem in America is