It is not difficult to notice that over the past 30 years, America's waistline has been growing. According to the American Obesity Association (AOA), close to 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million are obese, and 9 million are considered severely obese. Overeating, consuming unhealthy and fatty foods and a lack of exercise are the most common causes that most people attribute to obesity, but a closer examination of the issue reveals that a chaotic and hurried lifestyle and an over-dependence on technology are partly responsible for creating the conditions where an unhealthy lifestyle has become the norm for most Americans.
The percentage of Americans overweight from 1976 to 1980 was almost 20% less than today's number of overweight Americans. What is different today that causes us to be 20% larger than we used to be? Well it could be the smallest technological luxuries that we take for granted. For instance in 1976 if you wanted to roll your window up or down in your car you would have to crank the window not push a little button and watch it power it's way up. The same goes for locking your car doors; you couldn't just push a button on a little remote and hear the clank of the locks engaging you had to physically lock all the doors. Think of the technological advances that we have made in society in the last 30 years or so. Think of how many things we physically don't have to do anymore, all we have to do is push a button and presto, it's done.
Ebay.com, The Home Shoppers Network, Amazon.com, etc... All of these networks have one common promotion, laziness. We can't even go to the store to do our own shopping anymore. We get on the Internet behind a screen and go to the online shopping malls. Even walki...
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...s are only granted a half an hour for lunch. There are some that bring healthy lunches but the majority of the students eat the processed foods from the cafeteria. However in European countries such as France everyday in the middle of the day there is a one or two hour break where the city literally stops and goes home for lunch. The idea of a healthy home cooked meal has slowly been taken out of American society with the exception of the holidays. Even when Americans do have a home cooked meal the chances are that half of the food on the table is processed food. As long as there is an abundance of processed food the phenomenon of American obesity will continue.
America's waistline is still growing today. Our chaotic lifestyle, combined with our abundance of fast, and processed foods has created the perfect equation for the over weight society that we have become.
Obesity is on the rise, and it is becoming more and more of a national health concern. It effects more than 1/3 of the population, and an additional 1/3 is overweight. With obesity becoming more and more of a problem each year, the American population is going to suffer from a catastrophic health emergency.
Throughout the United States of America obesity is becoming a massive epidemic. Developing over the last thirty years, obesity had increased in call areas of the United States. Being overweight and obesity is a relatively simple concept, some extra pounds, but the factors behind the widespread obesity America is facing are anything but. With rising health food costs, which make it harder for many of America to have access to nutritious and beneficial foods, and a variety of other factors, America’s obesity problem is just that: a problem. We foster a culture of obesity, which has many underlying themes, that is a driving force behind America’s widening waist sizes. This culture is prevalent throughout the country and we see it promote unhealthy
Obesity today is a widely spread nutritional disorder that can affect anybody at any age across North America, majority of the reason being because there are so many fast food restaurants at just about every corner. With its low prices people are not going to be making the right decisions in what type of food they consume in their diet. Some examples of the junk food would be: Microwave dinners, snack foods like potato chips, which have high calories. It is not necessarily junk foods that make people obese and fat. Too many carbohydrates and foods with lots of starch in an individual’s diet can also cause them to gain undesired weight. It is not always someone’s dietary decision that makes him or her obese. Genetics play a monumental factor in a person’s weight. For example, if a child is born with two obese parents there is an 80 percent of a chance that the child can be born or become obese later in his or her life. Pregnancy can make the mother gain about 20 pounds after giving birth. Another said cause of weight gain is when the energy intake is more then the energy outtake in the body. That is not always the case.
Obesity has been a growing problem in America. With the leading cause of it is in our diet and the kind of foods we part take of everyday and they lifestyles that we all choose to live. The everyday habits and practices, that have been imbedded our every day routines. The American routine has become so lazy and self reliant on getting what we want and need at an instant that it has caused us to be over weight. We have all become so used to getting instant gratification, that it has been imbedded in our head that, why work for to get our food when we can go to a restaurant of our choosing and just pick out food. Especially with such a fast growing society that we live in everything moves so fast, We are all expected to keep up with
Some evidence points out too much food and not enough exercise as one of the main causes. According to the publichealth.org website, “Americans are notorious for their fast-food consumption ― such food makes up about 11% of the average American diet. Another study demonstrates the full effect added sugars from soda and energy drinks are wreaking havoc on American waistlines.” So it is not just how much we eat, but what we eat? On the other hand, Americans spent more than $50 billion annually on quick diet scheme, books, and work-out videos to lose weight. Most especially as a New Year’s resolution wish having had too much holiday dinners and parties. The irony of the mixed messages on health, and food consumption in America could send anyone to a therapist chair on conflicting emotions about food and
However, now that one is able to identify the causes of why so many Americans are becoming obese, a new approach to the trend could propose a solution to the rise of obesity. A new foundation to propose a solution for the rise in the average Americans obese life could be consuming more organic foods and less fast food, start new active lifestyle, containing ones eating disorders, and overcoming ones genetic disposition of obesity.
There is no doubt that obesity has taken its seat as one of the top disease that strikes the world today. In America, obesity has now spread through the country leaving 2 out of 3 adults either overweight or obese, and worldwide 1.5 billion are overweight or obese (Overweight). The cause of this disease stems from multiple reasons such as the increase in modern food production, putting out ample amounts of food causing the prices for meat, groceries, and especially junk food to plummet. Subsequently, Americans especially were more inclined to purchase more food and showed an increase in the average American house hold food intake by 1,000 more calories a day (Dreifus).
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:
Since the 1960?s obesity in America has more than tripled regardless of sex or race. Today 30.5 percent, or 69 million, American Adults are considered obese (?AOA Fact Sheets? np). In addition, 13 percent of children aged 6-11 years old are considered overweight, and well on their way to becoming obese. Obesity causes over 300,000 deaths a year and costs the country $117 billion dollars, prompting health care providers and the government to label it an epidemic (?Overweight and Obesity?? np).
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).
Americans are becoming more obese due to the challenges of the economy because healthy food is overpriced, fast food restaurants at every corner, and not enough motivation to exercise. If we are going to make a change, we need to take baby steps. A healthy world is a happy world.
Today when the vast majority consider fast food, they consider quick and cheap food that you can eat on the go. At the same time, shouldn't we think about it being unsubstantial and unhealthy? Are we in the right position to fault today's obesity on fast food? What about its impact on employment and agriculture?
...ody fat percentage than men do. On the other side of that, women tend to watch more what they eat and how much they consume, where men just eat what they want and when they want. With waist sizes expanding for the last 40 years, American finally started realizing that this is not a healthy life style and changes have to be made. In the last few years this phenomena of organic foods, healthy eating, and exercise has sparked. More people are consuming healthier choices of food, exercising more and trying to keep a healthy weight. The age ranges from young children being taught at school and by parents about a healthy lifestyle, to working adults taking stairs and having salads for lunch, to senior citizens taking longer walks and playing tennis. It looks like America has finally woken up from this nightmare and has begun taking positive steps towards healthier living.
The invasion of technology has long been assumed to contribute to the large number of Americans who are considered overweight and do not get an adequate amount of daily physical activity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of Americans who can be classified as obese. More than one-third of adults in the United States and approximately 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are considered obese ("Obesity and Overweight," 2012). However, the number of unhealthy Americans is not the only thing rising.
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