The rise of obesity in the United States has posed health and financial problems for this country that need to be dealt with. It is said that an obesity epidemic is sweeping the country and that the numbers are astronomical. Approximately 31% of all adults and 15% of children, ages 6-19 are obese. Obesity is also severe in a variety of ethnic groups. For example, 50% of non-Hispanic black women are obese.
Public Health Problem Obesity in the US has become a critical Public Health issue that has raised concerns throughout the nation. An estimate 97 million adults and 12.5 million children in America are obese, causing more than 160,000 “excess” deaths a year (CDC). Obesity is defined as a medical condition where there persists a high excess of body fat, enough to cause serious health issues. Through a biological view, obesity is an energy balance problem. Extra energy is stored as body fat when the energy consumption surpasses the energy expenditure.
Millions of people die each year from being overweight. It is said that in 2015 more than 700 million people will be obese. (NCD Alliance) What most people don’t realize is that if you are obese as a child, you have a higher chance of premature death and disability in adulthood. In an article called “The Fast Food and Obesity Link: Consumption Patterns and Severity of Obesity” researchers talk about the recent studies revolving around obesity and how it affect us. Recent studies have shown that these increases in extreme obesity rates are not specific to a certain population, but are rather an integral part of the weight distribution in the USA, and the more extreme the obesity, the higher the rate of growth [4].
There is a book called Understanding Obesity that says that the reason we need to be concerned is that excess weight is the cause of more illness than virtually any other medical condition. So this means that Obesity is a massive problem that affects the health of people. According to a web page Obesity causes 30,000 deaths a year, this is a big number for death and is literary caused because of the food. Obesity is a huge problem in the United States, Americans are grossly overweight, not only adults but also children. There are many causes for this, for example genetics, lack of exercise and food calories; obesity negatively affects our body in many ways causing health problems, people can reduce obesity by weight-loss surgery.
Obesity has been identified as one of the risk factors affecting directly and indirectly the health outcome of the population. Even though many approaches and programs have been conducted in order to reduce the obesity rate, this health issue is still a big headache and keeps being put on the table. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), overweight and obesity rate have been increasing significantly in the past two decades in the United States with more than 35.7% of adults and almost 17% of children and adolescents from 2-19 years olds being obese ("Overweight and obesity," 2013). As Healthy People 2020 indicated, in the period from 1988-1994 to 2009-2010, the age adjusted obesity rate among U.S adults aged 20 and over increased from 22.8% to 35.7%, which means increased by 57% while the obesity rate among children and teenagers from 2 to 19 years old increased from 10% to approximately 17%, witnessing the increase of 69% ("Nutrition, physical activity," 2013). Obesity has impact both on economic and health of the nation.
Obesity is a chronic, metabolic disease caused by multiple and complex factors, including increased calorie intake, decreased physical activity and genetic influences. The exact level of obesity is determined by reference to the Body Mass Index (BMI). A score of 30+ on the BMI indicates obesity. A score of 40 indicates severe obesity. Caused by a complex variety of factors, obesity is a major risk factor for serious health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer Childhood obesity has been rising at the same rate as obesity in adults.
Some symptoms of being obese include a body fat percentage greater than thirty percent for women and twenty-five percent for men or weighing more than twenty percent more than your ideal body weight (Simon 2000). One would need to visit their physician in order to accurately determine their body fat percentage or their ideal weight. Now that we have a better understanding of what obesity is, we will look at exactly how widespread it is and whom it affects. Being overweight and obesity are serious health problems. “In 1993, obesity was identified as a key contributor to at least 300,000 deaths each year in America,” according to former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health, J. Michael McGinnis, MD, and the former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), William Foege (Klein 2000).
Clearly, trying to attack this problem just on the individual level will not yield satisfactory results. Approximately 280,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are related to obesity, and obesity is also related to the causes of some cancers, such as colon, rectum, ovary and prostate. [5]Given the increasing prevalence of these diseases and the enormous growing social and economic costs of obesity, a part of the national budget needs to be set aside to provide educational and advocacy programs to help people and communities deal with this problem. The diet industries participate actively in reducing obesity by promoting the use of diet pills, low-fat recipes, surgical treatments to reduce fat, and topically applied creams. Even though obesity is often the result of an unhealthy lifestyle, the media have chosen to tackle the problem by promoting the quick fixes mentioned above, instead of by challenging the exercise and food choice habits that promote obesity.
Today, as values of living continue to boost, weight increase and obesity are posing a rising threat to certain well-beings in countries all over the world. Obesity, now confirmed as a nationwide endemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is likely to get worse and amplify over time. “The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts there will be 2.3 billion overweight adults in the world by 2015 and more than 700 million of them will be obese” (Obesity: in Statistics, 2008, 2nd Statement). It is definite that most kids are inclined to eat junk food, and it is certain that most kids will become overweight as adults. About 15% of children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years are overweight, which is an increase of 4% from the 1988-1994 NHANES study” (Chatterjee, Blakely, & Barton, 2005, p. 24).
Obesity in children "costs the health care system $14 billion per year, much which comes from public funds" (Glanz, 2008). Also, obesity is expected to cause 112,000 deaths per year in the United States(Gollust, 2014). In addition, many changes seen in the health care sy... ... middle of paper ... ...ies (Glanz, 2001). Societal expectations and norms have gone more to the healthier side of eating and physical activity passed on people's perceptions. Childhood obesity is a main concern in the public health world and is matter that must be handled by not only the parents of the children, but policy development industries and health promotion organizations in order to increase their health and decrease the national obesity rate.