The Importance Of Obesity In America

It is a well-known fact that Americans are becoming heavier and heavier each passing year. That each year more and more Americans are reaching the medical diagnosis of obese, morbidly obese, or beyond. According to the CDC two out of three American adults are overweight and at least one of those two is obese (National Institutes of Health, 2012). In fact, as you can see on the graph on page six 75% of Americans have a BMI over 25. With obesity comes a whole myriad of medical conditions that are typically avoidable had the individual of taken care of themselves. Doctors are able to fix medical problems with prescriptions and diet, but instead of medicine perhaps they should be prescribing recreation and outdoor time. Overweight and obesity are a direct result from consuming more calories (energy) than we expend on a day-to-day basis. Occasionally eating more than our bodies need will not cause us to be overweight, however for most Americans daily over consumption is common. Simply put, our bodies needs calories from food in order to keep it running. However, as Americas life style has become more sedentary and there is less and less access to outdoor space, a decrease in calories consumed or an increase in physical recreation has become a necessity.

These five approaches are:

• Doctors really ought to prescribe parks and public recreation programs to their patients most at risk for obesity-related