Because obesity has many causes, people do not think the government implementing regulations on food will influence healthy decisions. In Charles Baum's article, “In Fight With Obesity, a Bigger Government is the Wrong Weapon,” he tells reasons why the government would not help obesity rates go down by making regulations on food. In the article, he states, “Obesity is the result of overconsumption of calories. And as our research demonstrated, people find a variety of ways to do this” (Baum). Baum says that other causes of obesity like people quitting smoking and lacking regular exercise will keep obesity rates high even if the government puts regulations on food.
Previously, obesity was considered a lifestyle choice but more recently it has been determined medically as a chronic disease or disability. Today more than one third of all American’s are considered obese. In the past obesity was a topic that was attempted to prevent. Now with new healthcare, and a medical diagnosis, the focus on obesity is no longer an attempt to prevent it, but to treat an already existing disease. Has this caused a sense of acceptance of obesity?
Overall childhood obesity needs to be taken seriously as there are many parents who are in desperate need of help for their children. Childhood obesity was recognized in 1909 by insurance companies after evaluating their statistics. “Obesity is defined as an abnormal increase of fat in the subcutaneous connective tissue (Kelly 5). This definition is debated among physicians and the most common way people determine whether another person is obese is simply by looking at the person. However, Kelly states that some professionals aren’t accurate when determining if a person suffers from obesity.
Not only is the obesity rates increasing, but so is our chance of developing diabetes along with hypertension, high cholesterol and heart disease. People want to comment and have a say about the situation. But very few people want to take action and change the way our food today is processed and made accessible to us. The major argument people have is that they do not have the money for a healthier lifestyle. But,
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... ... middle of paper ... ... are just not to be the main focus. In conclusion, cultural factors widely contribute to America’s obesity epidemic as busy lifestyles are highly influenced by learned values, beliefs, attitudes and practices. These external factors do not accommodate the nation’s ideals of image, therefore one is to rely on internal factors to beat the obesity epidemic and decrease future health issues. References 1. Fieldhouse, P. Weight disturbances.
Medical conditions, influence of genes, unhealthy lifestyles, and mental illnesses are all contributors towards obesity in any one person. Obesity is a serious problem in America with multiple contributors and one lone solution cannot solve the bigger issue. The causes of obesity can range from basic overeating to genetic problems passed down from ten generations back. Many causes of obesity can be avoided by just living a healthy lifestyle, yet many people still hunt for the perfect quick-fix drug, investing more time and energy into finding a cure than just making better life choices. Doctors across the world have dedicated their lives to finding a cure to obesity, except there isn’t just one cure for everyone.
Associations like the AMA are focusing on using these different treatments on people who are already struggling with obesity. These supporters who say obesity is a disease are only considering the people that already have the “disease”. They are not as concerned for the increasing numbers of obesity rates meaning they are not planning to do much for obesity prevention. Research has claimed that the fast food industry has spent $4.9 billion on advertising. The targets of these advertisements are usually young children.
When someone decides to continuously eat healthy, the effect is a healthier person. Being healthy is extremely important when trying to prevent obesity, but it can be prevented. People need to be aware of the rise in obesity and do more in their lives to help prevent it from becoming an epidemic. It would be hard to imagine walking in public and seeing almost all Americans looking disturbingly, obese because of their poor diet and exercise choices; poor choices will result in a dreadful and unwanted outcome. Works Cited Borrell, Luisa & Samuel, Lalitha.
This classification isn’t recent for obesity but has been considered a disease as far back as the 1600’s (David A., Downey M., Atkins R., Billington C., Bray G., Eckel R., Finkelstein E., Jensen M., Tremblay A. (2008)). The obesity epidemic has become widespread in our country. Now that I have broken down the different aspects of this disease, it is up to us, as a society, to help each other become educated about obesity and teach our children the side effect obese. The more educated Parent are about obesity, the more likely their children contain and eradicate it.
That salad contain thirty t... ... middle of paper ... ...esity is a condition and yes it prevents the body from working properly but using that criteria to classify something as a disease would call for the classification of many other things as diseases. Let’s take smoking into account, smoking is a condition and it causes lung cancer which prevents the body from working normally but is smoking a disease? No, it is the cause and any malfunctions within the body are the effects and the effects are the true diseases. The same thinking should be applied to obesity because obesity is not a disease it is a biological consequence of unhealthy decisions. To sum up, obesity is the result of unhealthy eating, lack of exercise and little else.