The Leading Causes of Obesity

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Abstract According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in the past twenty years there has been an increase in obesity in the United States. The CDC data base points out that about a third of the American population is suffering from obesity and seventeen percent or 12.5 million of the American children and adolescents are also suffering from obesity. [1] This research will address several questions including: what is obesity? Are there any medical conditions related to obesity? What is the leading cause of obesity in America? Is obesity a hereditary trait among the American population? What are the leading factors contributing to obesity in America? Last but not least is there a way to minimize the increasing cases of obesity in America? What is obesity? According to the Webster’s College Dictionary obesity is defined as ‘very fat or overweight; corpulent’ [2]. The Bing Dictionary defines obesity as ‘overweight: extremely or unhealthily fat or overweight, or clinically overweight: having a body weight more than 20 percent greater than recommended for the relevant height’ [3]. The online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia defines obesity in clinical terms as ‘a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extend that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems’ [4]. From the above definitions we can conclude that obesity in its simplest form is being overweight or simply stated “fat”. From the above definitions we can also see that Bing and Wikipedia indicate that this is an unhealthy condition and that it could have a negative effect on the health of a person to the point of reducing the life expectancy of an overweight person and increasing the potential for health problems. America has become the fattest nation in the world due to

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