Choltus 1

Devon Choltus
Mrs. Nickell
Graduation Paper
2/21/15
The Obesity Epidemic
Obesity is the fastest-growing cause of disease and death in America. And its completely
preventable. With an awareness of the epidemic that is sweeping our country, help is more easily
accessible and treatments are more than prevalent. Yet, nearly two out of every three Americans
are overweight or obese (Carmona). The exponentially rising trends of obesity are frightening
for Americas future. Obesity rates among children in the U.S. have doubled since 1980 and
have tripled for adolescents (Stanford Hospital & Clinics). The efforts to end obesity and stop
the massive trends in deaths from disease related illnesses are not enough. Reform is necessary to
save our generation, the population of America now, and future generations to come. The global
epidemic of obesity is an increasing issue and only through lifestyle change, treatment, and
governmental intervention, will it be addressed and solved.
Being overweight and obese is not the same thing. Overweight and obesity are not the
same, rather they represent different points on the same path of weight, ranging from
underweight to obese (Stanford Hospital & Clinics). The difference lies in the classifications
that must be reached to determine whether someone is just overweight or is clinically obese.
These classifications are based off of BMI or body mass index; a common method of
determining the percentage of body fat on a person by considering height, weight, and age. An
adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight (Overweight and Obesity)
while an adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese (Overweight and Obesity).
The rates of obesity are growing exponentially and America will continue to see a rising trend in
the prevalence of the disease, related illnesses, deaths, and economical impacts.
Many factors serve as causes for obesity, so finding a point source is nearly impossible.
Factors such as genetics, diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices all affect body weight and fat
percentages, eventually leading a person to be overweight or obese if these factors are not
maintained at normal levels. Genetics is the study of genes passed throughout your ancestors that
make you the way you are today. If there is a pattern of obesity in a persons lineage, there is a
higher probability that they will be diagnosed with obesity due to what they have inherited from
their parents. If one parent is obese, there is a 50% chance that a child will also be obese.
However, when both parents are obese, a child has an 80% chance of being obese (Marcus).
Other than heredity, genetics also includes metabolism. How you expend energy differs from
how someone else will. Metabolic and hormonal factors are not the same for everyone, but these
factors play a role in determining weight gain (Stanford Hospital & Clinics).

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Diet and exercise play a critical role in a persons health. To maintain a healthy weight, a
person has to exercise enough to burn their caloric intake. Unfortunately, fast food and high
calorie diets are common in America. If you eat a diet in which a high percentage of calories
come from sugary, high-fat, refined foods, chances are you'll gain weight. As more American
families eat on the go and people look for low-cost options, more people reach for high-calorie
and high-fat foods and beverages like fast food (Stanford Hospital & Clinics). Although this
lifestyle is not ideal and healthy, it can be balanced by the right amount of exercise. Physical
activity helps control weight, builds lean muscle, reduces fat, and contributes to a healthy
functioning cardiovascular system, hormonal regulatory system, and immune system; promotes
strong bone, muscle and joint development; and decreases the risk of obesity (Lets Move).
Unfortunately, fewer than one in five high school students meet the current recommendation of
60 minutes of daily physical activity (Lets Move), as do most Americans, hence the epidemic
America continues to face.
A major contributor to obesity is lifestyle. Television, video games, and the media in
general all take some responsibility in contributing to the obesity epidemic. TV viewing is a
contributing factor to obesity because it may take away from the time children spend in physical
activities, lead to increased energy intake through snacking and eating meals in front of the TV,
and influence children to make unhealthy food choices through exposure to food advertisements
(Overweight and Obese). ..The average American child spends more than four hours every day
watching television, playing video games, or surfing the web... (Carmona). The question that
remains is how do all these hours in front of the screen directly relate to obesity? In a study of
the correlation between media and obesity, it was found that the odds of being overweight
were 4.6 times greater for youth watching more than 5 hours of television per day compared with
those watching for 0-1 hours (The Role of Media). This study directly shows the positive
correlation between the amount of hours spent in front of a television and related obesity.
Children, adolescents and adults are all facing exponentially rising trends. Over the past
three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three
children in America are overweight or obese. If we don't solve this problem, one third of all
children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives (Lets Move).
Of all the age groups, the one with the most prevalence of obesity is adults. Over 60 percent of
adults are considered overweight or obese (Stanford Hospital & Clinics) and of that 60 percent,
More than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese (Overweight and Obese).
The graph shown is representative of the exponential trends that America is facing with
adult prevalence of obesity.
Source: Mukherjee, Sy. "The Obesity Rate In The U.S. Is Leveling Off But Its Still At
Epidemic Levels." ThinkProgress RSS. 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.
<http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/18/2803431/adult-obesity-levels-high/>.
The data proves that in the last 60 year the United States has faced a rapid increase in
obesity prevalence and that it will continue to grow to just under 50 percent prevalence rate by

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2030 if growth rates are not disturbed. All age groups data show how the epidemic is affecting
everyone in America.
Being overweight or obese has detrimental effects to overall health and has many diseaserelated illnesses that are life threatening. The list of disease related illnesses is lengthy, but the
most common are heart disease, diabetes, and psychological influences. Obesity contributes to
the number-one cause of death in our nation: heart disease (Carmona). Overweight or obese
people can damage their heart with the amount of fat in their bodies and clog their arteries.
Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the United States (Health
Effects of Obesity). Heart disease refers to diseases that only occur in the heart and the blood
vessel system within it (Health Effects of Obesity). Obese people who take initiative can lower
their chance of developing the disease easily. Losing 5 to 15 percent of your weight can lower
your chances of developing heart disease. (Health Effects of Obesity).
Obesity is the major cause of type 2 diabetes. This type of diabetes usually begins in
adulthood but, is now actually occurring in children. Obesity can cause resistance to insulin, the
hormone that regulates blood sugar. When obesity causes insulin resistance, the blood sugar
becomes elevated. Even moderate obesity dramatically increases the risk of diabetes (Stanford
Hospital & Clinics). Obese people who lose only 5 to 7 percent of their body weight decrease
the severity of the disease (Health Effects of Obesity).
Overweight or obese people often experience psychological effects due to their weight.
Issues arise in school settings, social relationships and self-esteem. People who are obese
often face prejudice or discrimination in the job market, at school, and in social situations.
Feelings of rejection, shame, or depression may occur (Health Effects of Obesity). The
psychological stress of social stigmatization can hinder academic and social functioning, and
persist into adulthood. In a study to see how being obese psychologically affected children,
the study found that obese children often rated their quality of life with scores as low as those of
young cancer patients on chemotherapy (Marcus). Obesity at a young age can clearly affect a
person throughout their life and without help, people may find it hard to live happily. Obese
people also may put themselves in a vicious cycle of resorting to food for comfort in which they
will continue to eat to make them feel better about eating. See the issue?
When lifestyle change isnt enough, obese or overweight people may seek help in
medication prescribed by a doctor or therapy to address any eating disorders that may also
require the prescription of medication to treat the obesity-related problems (Stanford Hospital &
Clinics). Obese people are eager to find a quick fix to a problem that has been facilitated in their
bodies for years. Many morbidly obese people may have to resort to medical procedures to treat
the serious cases of obesity. Weight-loss surgery (bariatric surgery) is the only option today that
effectively treats morbid obesity in people for whom more conservative measures such as diet,
exercise and medication have failed (Stanford Hospital & Clinics). Although the surgery is
extensive and dangerous, it serves as a last resort to those who are morbidly obese.
Governmental intervention is necessary in America to control the obesity epidemic
swallowing the country in debt and disease. No state has an obesity rate less than 15%, the
national goal (Overweight and Obese). The Obama Administration with the Lets Move!

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program, the CDC, or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal menu label
Law, are efforts made by the American government to reduce and prevent further harm from
obesity, enforce health literacy and encourage healthy habits.
Overweight and obesity and their associated health problems have a significant
economic impact on the U.S. health care system (Overweight and Obesity). The medical care
costs of obesity in the United States are staggering. In 2008 dollars, these costs totaled about
$147 billion (Overweight and Obesity). The heavy costs of obesity aren't just affecting the
government, in health care the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher
than those of normal weight (Overweight and Obesity). Its very expensive to be obese and
many Americans believe that they are saving money by buying cheap and unhealthy food, while
in the long run they will end up paying more in medical costs. There are at least 17 million
Americans with diabetes, and another 16 million have pre-diabetes. Each year, diabetes costs
America $132 billion. In the year 2000, the total annual cost of obesity in the United States was
$117 billion. (Carmona). While extra value meals may save us some change at the counter,
theyre costing us billions of dollars in health care and lost productivity.
Lets Move! is a governmental initiative launched by the First Lady, Mrs. Michelle
Obama, dedicated to solving the problem of childhood obesity within the United States. The
program is focused on ideas to influence the generation in trouble to make healthy lifestyle
choices. They are focused on increasing physical activity, making healthy foods more accessible
including in schools, and educating America on healthy lifestyles (Lets Move). The Lets Move!
Initiative has goals set to reduce the obesity rates. The goal of the action plan is to reduce the
childhood obesity rate to just five percent by 2030 the same rate before childhood obesity first
began to rise in the late 1970s. (Lets Move). If the initiative is successful, the United States will
see drastic improvement in the health of future generations.
The CDC implements many programs in hopes of improving overall American health. A
new CDC program, Communities Putting Prevention to Work, is designed to improve nutrition
and physical activity and prevent and control obesity by changing policies and environments.
The CDC recently provided $139 million to 50 states and $373 million to 30 communities and
tribes to fund programs to reverse the obesity epidemic (Overweight and Obese). Other
programs include Active Transport to School, Maternity Care Practices, and Limiting Access to
Sugar-sweetened Beverages (Overweight and Obese). The CDC carries an urgency to change
the American lifestyle that is needed in the governmental interventions to see results from the
efforts.
Of all intervention methods, laws and legislation straight from the United States
government are the most influential and change-provoking. The Federal Menu Label Law is a
recent law passed to improve health literacy and help influence people's decisions when they go
out to eat. The federal menu label law was passed in March 2012 when President Obama signed
the Health Care Reform Act. The law requires national retail food establishments to follow the
laws provisions which includes having the menus contents listed with calories and other
valuable information about the foods nutrition such as fat, cholesterol, and sodium contents
(Federal Menu Label Law). To prevent future generations from facing the same obesity

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epidemic, an important aspect for the government to employ is health literacy. Health literacy is
the ability of an individual to access, understand, and use health-related information and services
to make appropriate health decisions (Carmona). This idea of knowing exactly what a person is
eating ties in well with the Federal Menu Label Law that encourages knowing the caloric content
of the food a person purchases. By putting trans-fat information on food labels, were giving
American families information to make smart choices and lower their intake of these unhealthy
fats (Carmona).
Some people believe that the intervention of the government to help slow and prevent the
obesity epidemic is wrongful and intrusive. Give Americans moral, financial, and personal
responsibility for their own health and obesity is no longer a public matter but a private one- with
all the costs, concerns, and worries of being overweight borne only by those people that are
overweight (Balko). People bothered by the governmental intervention worry about the reliance
on government for help and consolidation for a disease that is completely preventable. It seems
unnecessary to pay for the costs of an obese person who is letting others pay for and deal with
his/ her own lack of regard for their own health. It may seem out of the governments
responsibility to help overweight or obese people because it is a choice to facilitate obesity in
their personal lives. Having said that, the United States is affected as a whole by the obesity
epidemic and the governments involvement is crucial to save future generations from suffering
the same epidemic. Government should be doing everything it can to create conditions that lead
to healthy eating, supporting parents in raising healthy children, and making decisions in the
interests of public health rather than private profit (Balko). With the government involved, the
United States can eventually turn around the exponentially increasing trends of obesity in order
to save future generations from the ever growing obesity epidemic.
The epidemic of obesity spreading through America is preventable, and through changes
in lifestyle, treatment, and governmental intervention will halt the rising trends. An array of
causes are responsible for obesity, and as Americans are educated on how to use causes such as
diet, exercise and lifestyle choices to their benefit will reduce the epidemic, reduce the
prevalence of disease related illnesses, and lower health costs for not only themselves, but for the
US as a whole. By taking part in community initiatives and participation in voting for laws to be
passed to reduce the epidemic, Americans can create a society that not only enforces education
on health but also implements an ideal world for future generations to grow and thrive in as
happy, healthy, fit citizens.

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