“The flavors of childhood foods seem to leave an indelible mark, and adults often return to them, without always knowing why. These “comfort foods” become a source of pleasure and reassurance, a fact that fast food chains work hard to promote. Childhood memories of Happy Meals can translate into frequent adult visits to McDonald’s, like those of the chain’s “heavy users,” the customers who eat there four or five times a week.” (Schlosser) Many companies have realized this and are constantly modifying different items on the menu to reach the perfect flavor. This combined with the advertisements aimed at both adults and children dramatically increase the number of customers per
Approximately one third of American adults were believed to be obese in 2013. Obesity has many different effects, some are short term and others are long term, but all are negative. Some short term effects are that risk factors for cardiovascular disease immediately increase, which is known as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. This can also be a long term effect because it affects young people when they get older. Obesity can also cause diabetes, heart disease, joint problems, respiratory problems, cancer, metabolic syndrome, and psychosocial effects.
Cynthia Holland English 102 Professor Myers 2 March 2011 Word Count 1,184 How the Epidemic of Obesity is Taking Over America According to Barbara Mantel, the rate of obesity “has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, and in 2001 the nations surgeon general went so far as to call obesity an epidemic” (Mantel par. 1). The obesity epidemic has affected millions of live across the United States. There are important factors as to why obesity is such a problem in America, too many people are eating excessive portions of fast foods, people are getting less exercise, and with new technology being developed people are becoming more sedentary. The rate of obesity among the people of the United States has become alarmingly overwhelming.
Obesity, having excessive amounts of body fat, impairs health and has serious physical and mental consequences. (http://www.bmicharts.org, 2011) Causes of childhood obesity There is a variety of factors associated with causing childhood obesity. Although genetics can affect weight, evidence shows that lifestyle choices and environmental factors have the largest impact. Little physical movement and/or consuming too many calories can result in considerable weight gain. These sedentary lifestyles contribute greatly to childhood obesity.
Some are uncontrollable, like genetics, and some are, such as choosing to eat the cupcake instead of the fiber bar. That is the funny thing: the high obesity rate can be lowered and maintained just by making healthier choices every day. Many of our lifestyle choices lead to us being overweight and obese, but that can easily change; as America continue to ignore the obesity rate, many of us are dying each day from this disease called diabetes. Because our lifestyle choices affect our weight, our health, and the chances of us becoming obese, we can reduce that by balancing our energy, having a more active lifestyle, eating a healthy diet, changing our environment, and getting more sleep. One of the main reasons of obesity is the lack of energy balance, meaning that the amount of food you eat is the right amount to manage your weight.
Not only are we doing this to ourselves, now we are doing this to our children. (1 in 3 American children is obese). 30.6 percent obesity in America. This number is sobering when comparing it to other countries. What is more alarming, is that if people don’t start paying more attention to what they are eating this number is only going to grow.
Everything is becoming more fast pace, mechanized and technology based. With this in mind, the nutrition status for middle and low-income families have an increase in consumption of animal fat, refined grains and added sugar due to more production of highly processed foods to save time and money for companies (Gortmaker et al., 2011). It is important to stay up-to-date with the trends of obesity, but with the increasing rates is has become a high pubic health priority to prevent obesity (Penman & Johnson, 2009). Policies have been placed that increase taxes for unhealthy food, but this still makes it hard on lower income families who are still not able to afford healthier foods but instead are forced to buy unhealthy alternatives. Necessary alternative include a change in individual behavior and increase in education for people to understand the benefits and risk of obesity and how they can change.
After seeing, “Super Size Me,” it has shown me the devastating effects of excessively eating fast food. The documentary shows Morgan Spurlock was made to show the increasing spread of obesity throughout the United States society. Many lawsuits were brought against McDonald’s for increase in obesity. In “Super Size Me”, Places like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s also advertise toys that are included in kid’s meals to cause children to want to get those meals rather than something healthier. The increasing spread of obesity has become an epidemic and if Americans do not change their eating habits it will greatly effect the world to come.
One of the most common risk factors for insulin resistance is obesity, especially central abdominal obesity. Studies indicate a correlation between body mass index (BMI) and the degree of liver damage. The higher the BMI the worse the liver disease http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/dangers-of-obesity-634958.htmlixzz0oRg3tGJN . There are also many different social problems for being obese, some people cannot lose weight after a certain point because they will wear themselves out too quickly to actually start burning enough calories for sufficient weight loss. Many people will also look down on someone if they’re overweight and see them as disgusting creatures causing them to become isolated from groups, possibly making them feel depressed.
Child Obesity in America Child obesity is a growing problem in American societies these days. Children are getting bigger and bigger and the major cause to this problem is growing number of fast food restaurants, unhealthy diet, not enough nutrition in the body and lack of exercise. Moreover, there are plenty of statistics that prove that child obesity in America is at epidemic levels. Research has proven that in the last 30 years, the number of children who are overweight has tripled to 15%. Another research shows that one third of nation’s children are obese.