4 Responses to “Obesity Epidemic?”

1. Kayte
   十二月 5th, 2009 @ 11:31 下午

   It’s pretty much fast food places ie, McDonalds, Buger King ect.The more places like those that exist, the rounder Americans are going to become. It’s a horrible thing thats moslty happening to the kids of america, and will greatly effect their future, by forming bad habbits now, such as eating out every night. don’t get me wrong though, eating out 1-3 times a month is fine, they even say it helps you keep going on your diet.Video games are also the problem. Instead of playing in their back yards or parks, kids are inside playing the newest Halo video game(you get what I mean right?)This really needs to change if these people want a future, because as you probably know, obesity can lead to life threating diseases. I hope this helps!

2. corina
   十二月 6th, 2009 @ 5:49 上午

   “America is feeding us fat on a silver platter” But, we dont have to eat it. there’s plenty of healthy food to eat. it may not have the best taste, but its healthy.
   besides that, im not really sure of what else to say. hope i helped a little
   =D

3. lindervi
   十二月 6th, 2009 @ 6:16 上午

   I think ‘obesity epidemic’ is a combination of many factors. There is a serious lack of personal responsibility when it comes to ‘How I Got Fat’. It’s not entirely the fault of American food producers. You have a choice about your level of activity and what foods you put in your body.
   Yes, sugary cereal sellers and fatty fast food sellers advertise aggressively. They’re trying to make money – which is something everyone does. Fatty/sugary food is cheaper to produce, so they make even MORE money by selling sub-standard food to people who can’t afford to buy better. 90% lean beef is more expensive than 70% lean beef. Plus, fatty things taste good, otherwise no one would buy them.
   Honestly, kids don’t go outside enough anymore – but parents don’t make them do so enough, either. You can eat crappy food as long as you’re getting enough exercise. It’s not good for your heart, but you could do it.
   I am overweight. That is my fault. You cannot blame advertising or peer pressure for that. It’s like smoking – that’s YOUR choice. No one make you pick up that first cigarette. I’ve never smoked a day in my life, so it’s not like advertising is so irresistable.

4. Unknown.
   十二月 6th, 2009 @ 12:12 下午

   The obesity epidemic has actually reached a plateau since 1999… http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…
   The obesity numbers are also based on the rather arbitrary BMI system that shows large framed and muscular people as ‘obese.’
   Since the turn of the century, women have gone from an average of a size 3.5 shoe to a size 8 average. That means our frame sizes are getting larger and larger.
   But, in 1998 the Us lowered the obesity level on the BMI scale from a 27.5 to a 25 to match international standards.
   However, mens feet in the US are 1.5 sizes bigger on average then men in the UK. Womens shoe size on average in the US is an 8 while in the UK the average is a 5. Japanese women also average a size 5 shoe..
   In other words, yes, we are one of the heaviest nations. We also have larger feet on average.. Yet, our BMI system reflects people who are much smaller then us to start out with..
   There are definitely plenty of obese people in the US and sadly enough many of them got there through the use of low calorie diets in an attempt to attain a weight they couldn’t really reach.http://www.inch-aweigh.com/dietstats.htm
   “Dieting is out of control in the United States…
   * Almost half of American children between first and third grades say they want to be thinner.
   * Four out of five ten-year-old children are afraid of being fat.
   * On any given day, one in four men are on a diet.
   * Half of our nine and ten-year-old girls say that being on a diet makes them feel better about themselves.
   * More than one out of three “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. One fourth of those will suffer from partial or full syndrome eating disorders.
   * Americans spend over forty billion dollars a year on dieting and diet related products.
   * Between five and ten million women and girls in the United States struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
   * One million boys and men struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.
   * The number of people with eating disorders and borderline conditions is triple the number of people living with AIDS (664,921 people are living with AIDS).
   * Eating disorders affect at least three times as many people as schizophrenia does (2.2 million people are living with schizophrenia).
   ”
   One cause of obesity is low calorie diets.. http://www.thedietchannel.com/weightloss…
   “6. Obesity as a result of chronic dieting
   Have you tried several “starvation diets” or Popular Diets over the course of your lifetime? If so, chances are you are having a much more difficult time taking pounds off now. Our primitive ancestors didn’t have the mass quantities of food available like we have today. During times of famine and starvation, their bodies became programmed to slow down metabolism and conserve every calorie in order to survive. That programming hasn’t changed today, despite the significant amounts of food available. So, every time you go on a starvation diet or crash diet, your body kicks in to “starvation mode” and lowers your metabolism in an effort to conserve every calorie you eat. For all your body knows, a famine has set in for months, and it must do what it can to survive. In addition, when you lose weight too rapidly, the body uses muscle tissue as a primary source of energy. Losing muscle is never desirable because that causes a direct decrease in your metabolism. So, chronic crash-dieting over the years generally leads to nothing more than a decrease in metabolism due to muscle loss as well as the body’s programmed survival response. Many chronic dieters find that they will literally gain weight on 1200 calories a day. How do you get your metabolism back up to par if you’ve been a chronic dieter? You guessed it – regular exercise ”
   There needs to be more nutritional education. A good 90% of the breads on the shelf in the grocery store don’t provide even a days worth of fiber in the entire loaf. Just about every bread, noodle and cereal is completely devoid of the nutritional elements grain based foods should include. Labels are misleading. You can buy a cereal that says “made with real whole grains” and it may have only one gram of fiber per serving.
   I would say one of the biggest problems for Americans is our absolutely misleading food labeling. If it doesn’t have at least 25% of your daily fiber needs, it shouldn’t be allowed to say “whole grain” on the front of the box or bag. Companies also promote their foods as only having so many calories per serving when they know the serving size is much much smaller then anyone actually eats. Who eats a 1/2 cup of ice cream? Nobody. The nutritional information should have a real serving size.

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