Summary
Obesity has been an eminent health problem for the people in the modern times. The modern life has provided us many things that make the life easy for us, however, we face new issues with it such as a fast life, rush, higher competition in the job market and work, psychological problems, not enough time for exercising, and obesity. Nowadays, people are consuming more calories than they burn and as a result of this we are having obesity problem. This paper explains how we face obesity problem by providing some information of background of obesity.
Each part will give ideas of different factors influencing obesity in our lives, the results of being obese, and how obesity begins at childhood. After giving some information from the selected papers, I will conclude this essay by compiling all the information and reaching a conclusion.
Senauer, Benjamin. “The Obesity Crisis: Challenge to the Food Industry”. The Food Industry Center, University of Minnesota, August 2013.
Benjamin Senauer states that overweight and obesity are rising in many developed countries and obesity problem is a result of food industry marketing strategies.
The food industry also promotes obesity with their advertisements and the food they prepare for people. Life conditions also shape people's obesity by forcing them to eat fast and mostly unhealthy food and not giving them enough time to be physically active. The rush in life causes a little leisure time for people to take care of them and spend less time on eating and doing sports.
Consequently, the modern life requires being fast to be competitive and people prefers easier ways to take care of themselves. The food industry has realized this and they serve food to match the needs of the modern life. Although the food companies claim that their products are produced to provide a healthy food, under these conditions, it is far from being healthy for people.
Source: Web, http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/14309/1/tr03-04.pdf.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 2002. Health, United States, 2002. Atlanta, Georgia. Viewed at www.cdc.nchs/hus.htm.
CDC paper gives some figures about obesity and its consequences in the U.S.
In the U.S. almost two third of the population has been identified as obese and the number of obese people are distributed from kids to adults at different ages. 30.5% of the adults and 15% of teenagers are identified as obese in the U.S. Another important number about adults is that almost 65% of adults are fat. From 1980 to 2000, the number of obese people rose about by three fold. The obesity brings a big cost burden on health services by 738 USD per person.
The obesity percentage is around 30% and there is no difference among genders and different age groups. The obesity rate keeps increasing for children and adolescents also. %16,5% of the American boys and 15% of the American girls have been identified as obese. In total numbers, 78 million adults and 12.5 million children and adolescents are obese in the current times.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDHP), 2002. Trends in Diabetes Prevalence Among American Indian and Alaska Native Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults 1990-1998”. Viewed at www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/factsheet/aian.htm, on April 18, 2003.
CDC Statistics shows that obesity or overweight is an major health risk because it might cause some kind of cancers, diabetese, high blood pressure, heart failure/stroke or a number of other diseases with serious consequences.
The statistics shows that all the races, the genders and ethnic groups are facing obesity problem more and more everyday. The incidence of diabetese increased by 71% for American Indians and for other people similar numbers are realized recently. CDC express that the main reason for the increasing diabetes among the U.S. citizens is mostly obesity.
Obesity is a major risk to many people in different races. 62% of the white people, 72% of the black people, 68.7% of the Hispanic people, 40.3% of the Asian people, and 70% of the American Indian and Alaska Natives have been identified as obese. Consequently, there is not big difference among different races and all the people belonging to the different races are suffering from the obesity.
Source: Web Kamp, David. “How Sweet It Is”. The New York Times Blog. March 15, 2013.
Kamp David basically states that a large segment of America whose members heedlessly eat processed foods in large portions that make them overweight and unwell.
The gaining weight over normal weight is a result of eating unhealthily and excessively and being less physically active according to Kamp David. There are three main determinants of extra weights: (1) Increase in portion size, (2) Legal liability of food companies, and (3) Disappearance of required physical activity in personal lives. The American Medical Society calls the obesity problem as an epidemic one.
In the U.S., the portions are much larger with respect to the portions in the other countries and foods are processed mostly. The Americans look like they care their health, however, their preferences in real life do tell us different. The food companies are willing to convert these preferences into profits and instead of providing healthy foods in healthy ways, they want more profits.
Source: Web, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/books/review/salt-sugar-fat-by-michael-moss.html?pagewanted=all.
Fumento, Michael. The Fat of the Land: The Obesity Epidemic and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves. New York, 1997. Penguin Books.
Micheal Fumento explains the obesity as an epidemic problem and it is basically as a result of gaining more calories than a person burns.
A typical individual gains one pound weight for each 3500 calories he or she consumes and many individuals cannot consume this amount because they do not become enough active in their daily lives. The conditions in our modern life show easy ways to people; preferring fast foods and eating in a short time due to busy days; having less exercise time; consuming economically and because of this consuming less cheap snakes between meals; instead of doing sports, spending more time in front of television watching sports events etc.
Even in the working life, we observe that there are many tools that makes thing easier, however, it makes people motionless also. Some people do some office exercises or very compact exercise programs are preferred. Being motionless for a long part of day and doing a compact exercise program is not helping people burn their fats.
Source: Print
Burros, Marian. “McDonald’s France Puts its Mouth Where Its Money Is”. The New York Times. October 30, 2000.
Marian Burros basically explains how food companies care profit more than providing healthy products to their customers.
The growing obesity problem is a kind of success belonging to the American food industry according to Marian Burros. Foods supplied by the food companies have big amounts calories, are sold at cheaper prices and they can be reached easily by people. Also many food advertisements are promoting to eat unhealthy and higher calories foods. This industry has influenced people attitudes of eating.
Every year in the news, we can observe an incidence of food poisoning, food virus and other similar issues. The design of the restaurants are designed to serve their customers as possible as fast, because many customers do not enjoy waiting longer times for their orders. It is even possible to see that some restaurants keep using the same frying oil many times and that decreases the quality of the food they serve and increases the health risks.
Source: Web, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/business/30FOOD.html.
Chang, Kenneth. “Organic Food vs. Conventional Food”. The New York Times Blog. September 4, 2012.
Kenneth Chang basically compares organic food and conventional food in terms of health.
In old times, finding food was requiring an important effort for people; they had to hunt or collect from the nature, or they needed to grow their own food by working on the land. However, in modern times, especially after the development of service industries, Kenneth Chang states many people are working in the offices and they do not need to be active to reach food, instead, they use money to reach food which is comparative to the old times much easier. There are plenty of food is already serviced to people better conditions.
The old fashion cooking takes longer time and mostly fresh ingredients are used. In the old times, people were much more interested in eating healthy, even though they did not have a large variety of food products. In our modern times, we consume many canned or frozen food and we prefer receiving the food in a short time.
Source: Web, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/organic-food-vs-conventional-food/.
Lakdawalla, Darius and Tomas Philipson, 2002. “The Growth of Obesity and
Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination.” National
Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. w8946, May 2002,
<http://papers.nber.org/papers/w8946>.
This article explains how technology is affecting our lives and causing obesity in the society. Nowadays, most people are in love with new technologies most of which decreases the physical activity of many people.
Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson explain that the modern social life has brought some negative things to people, for example, people are becoming less social those days and that affects people’s preferences. The studies show that many lonely people prefers watching television or doing inside activities, and those in home activities lead people to eat and drink more junk food and fast food such as potato or other kind chips, cokes etc.
Those junk foods are very influential on obesity.
Another important influence on obesity according to Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson is quality of food. There is a big discussion taking place; many food got approval from the FDA does include some materials that might cause obesity and some of them are genetically engineered. There is confusion on genetically engineered products and there are some signs that these products might be harmful to human health.
Source: Web “Teach Every Child About Food”. YouTube,2010.Web. 8 September 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_QOzc79Uc>.
This video tries to explain about children’s attitude against food and how it is developed.
Many health problems are caused by the health problems in childhood. In our modern time, parents are not spending enough time with kids. Not spending enough time with children means that parents do not learn enough about child health, do not have enough time to observe their children; and these bring to them many health risks for their children.
Many mothers prefer using alternative products to mother milk. In a short time, child gains enough weight and creates less trouble for mother. Breast feeding is very healthy for babies, but it takes longer time.
Such issues bring us that children create an understanding of food and they might have wrong diets along their lives. Because of this, children might have a higher risk of obesity in the future. To prevent this result, parents should give a healthy eating habit to their children at earlier times in their lives.
Source: Web Hill, James, 2003. “Obesity: An Actionable Response”, presentation at the 2003 Food Update Conference, Ft. Myers, FL, April 8, 2003; slide presentation available at www.foodupdate.org.
Basically James Hill claims that we can prevent obesity by taking some precautions.
Taking care of a child requires long time and busy parents mostly that much time. Instead of spending time with their children and observing their eating attitudes and leading them to right diets, many parents prefer giving unhealthy food to them. Children starting their lives with junk and fast food prefer the same food in their adulthood also.
We are living longer lives respectively, however, the natural resources are still limited and we have to compete with other people to survive. This fact forces us to be quick and more efficient at work and social life. Because of that, we do not have enough time to spend on preparing food and feeding ourselves healthily.
Consequently,we can develop a new strategy to respond obesity in our lives and this strategy needs to be supported by the government policies, laws, and other stakeholders in the food market. This way we can create a whole strategy dealing with obesity and from childhood, we can grow healthy individuals.
Source: Web Fogelhom, Mikael. Physical Activiy: A Part of Healthy Eating?. Lahti, Finland, 2000, Nordic Seminars.
Mikeal Fogelhom explains the main reason behind obesity as that all people are so busy to take care of themselves, and they need to eat quickly. This attitude makes us blind and even if we have some time for ourselves, we still think we are busy.
Being competitive has been important in the job market, in the social life and in the other parts of the life. To be competitive, a person needs to exhibit that he or she has the skills and can do many things easily and in a short time. Doing something easily and in a short time requires using machinery or keeping doing the same thing again and again. Finally, this person have many routines in life and these routines keep her or him motionless for long hours. Consequently, in order to be competitive, we prefer being obese and our life conditions promote this harmful preference.
Source: Print
CONCLUSION
The modern life forces us to be more competitive and to be competitive, instead of taking care of ourselves in a better way; we prefer adapting ourselves to a fast life. This process might bring us the opportunity to survive; however, we have some loss in the quality of living. Malthus’ Iron Law shows us that if the human population continues growing that fast, every human being should be more competitive to survive and we will have much faster lives.
The food industry, instead of promoting a healthy way in feeding ourselves, prefers making more profit. More profit requires serving people fast food and the foods including higher calories than normally people are in need. A responsible food industry might promote healthy ways of eating; however, most probably such a company might fail to survive due to not matching customers’ needs. Customers want to be more competitive rather than being healthier.
Works Cited
Burros, Marian. “McDonald’s France Puts its Mouth Where Its Money Is”. The New York Times. October 30, 2000.
Chang, Kenneth. “Organic Food vs. Conventional Food”. The New York Times Blog. September 4, 2012.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 2002. Health, United States, 2002. Atlanta, Georgia. Viewed at www.cdc.nchs/hus.htm.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDHP), 2002. Trends in Diabetes Prevalence Among American Indian and Alaska Native Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults 1990-1998”. Viewed at www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/factsheet/aian.htm, on April 18, 2003.
Fogelhom, Mikael. Physical Activiy: A Part of Healthy Eating?. Lahti, Finland, 2000, Nordic Seminars.
Fumento, Michael. The Fat of the Land: The Obesity Epidemic and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves. New York, 1997. Penguin Books.
Kamp, David. “How Sweet It Is”. The New York Times Blog. March 15, 2013.
Lakdawalla, Darius and Tomas Philipson, 2002. “The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination.” National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. w8946, May 2002, <http://papers.nber.org/papers/w8946>.
Senour, Benjamin. “The Obesity Crisis: Challenge to the Food Industry”. The Food Industry Center, University of Minnesota, August 2013.
“Teach Every Child About Food”. YouTube,2010.Web. 8 September 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_QOzc79Uc>.
