Obesity in the US
Researcher states that there is relationship between obesity and food consumption. Obesity is the condition of excess body fat and it can get diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and also fatal. People in the US getting obese because of the lack of education about healthy food and the abundance of fast food restaurant.
One of the factors of the obesity is lack of education. For example, I do not have any knowledge about food before I read Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. And I also do not know how to watch nutrition facts as well. I think that most of the children and teenager like us are obese because we do not have any knowledge about the food. Children cannot read nutrition fact, they cannot discuss which food is healthy or not. That is why obesity in children is getting higher every year. It increased from 5.8% into 17.3% between 1971-2006. "Three of every Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese" (Pollan 76). At least we need to know how many calories we are eating everyday. To eliminate the obesity, we need to teach children how to eat healthy, how many calories we need for a day, how to watch nutrition facts and enforce them away from fast food. The reason that I want to focus on children because they are new generations. If they have knowledge about healthy food, they will share their knowledge about healthy food to their next generations. So, the education is the best way to fight obesity.
Another factor of the obesity is supersizing. Supersizing happened because of corn. Most of the integrents are replaced by corn because corn is cheap. For example, sugar is replaced by HFCO which is included in soda drink. And the company do not want to reduce the price so that they supersize the drinks and keep selling with the original price. "Wallerstein discovered that people would buy more popcorn or soda -a lot more- as long as they came in single giant serving" (Pollan 81). Almost all of the diary food, meat and soft drinks are produced by corn. "When food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it" (Pollan 77). If we eat more, we will get more calories. So, we have more chance to obese. This is the another reason that fast food restaurants caused us obese.
Fast food restaurants are getting larger in the United States. People choose fast food because they are cheap and easier to find. "While driving down any main street in any city you are more prone to run into at least one of this country's 13,000 McDonalds restaurants, than you are finding a healthy option eatery on those same blocks" (Zinczenko 392). Also, fast food restaurants make us a habit of eating extra calories by selling supersize products. "Fast-food advertising encourages us to eat supersized meals" (Pollan 77). I always eat breakfast at McDonalds because it is near my home and cheap as well. For instance, I always buy big size of soda because it is just 50 cents difference and I think almost every people will not buy 2 small size of soda instead of giant one. I can predict that there will be increased in the rate of obesity if the people are eating fast food as their
main dish. Now, fast food restaurants make us lazy because of their convenient and delivery.
People are getting lazy and lacking exercise because technology makes us convenient. "We sit all day at desks in school or at work, then sit around all night watching television. We play video games instead of sports" ( Pollan 77). Nowaday, it is more easier to order food from online. You can get the food without going out of your home. There is a GrubHub company which delivers food to your home. So, you can order from your favourite restaurant without going out of your home. If we do not exercise, we cannot burn the calories what we eat. To get rid of obesity, "spend some time outside, get out and enjoy nature and all of the outside activities available where you live" (Anonymous 01). So, we must go out and walk at least an hour a day to burn our calories. It will reduce our fat and the obesity rate.
People in the US are obese because of lack of education which make us wrong decision in choosing food. Fast food company are selling supersized meals with cheap price. Also, technology makes us lazy and lack of exercise. For these reasons, obesity in the US is getting higher and higher every year.