Obesity, the United States is known as one of the unhealthiest places on the face of the planet. Shouldn’t that scare the US? They’re known for being the bellow par! So, the government has ideas of regulating people’s diets by cutting off cup sizes for sodas (not including diet soda), school’s making all the food groups visible in the lunch tray and posting calorie data on the package of the items being consumed. Over 260,000 New Yorker’s supports this act of regulation that the government is trying to pass.
New York has made a huge leap in the right direction by cutting off cup size to sugary drinks as found in 7Eleven, Circle K etc. from 20 oz. to 16 oz. so instead of being able to get the enormous big gulps at 7Eleven the state of NY says no, because in a cup of 20 oz. there is 240 calories.” If a person drank a soda a day, that would be 14,600 extra calories a year, equivalent to 70 Hersey’s bars. Furthermore, that could amount the 4 extra pounds of weight gain a year” (Park, 9/10/11). Although, it Might not seem like that big of a deal
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until you’re 80 years old and wishing your heart was in better health. If you could even make it to 80 years old drinking all that soda! With all this as evidence, it is so easy to find the information at least two-thirds of American adults is considered overweight or obese, on top of that “40% of NYC’s public elementary & middle school students” (Park, 5). Anyone would say these statistics are hair-raising. Something that pops up recurrently all over the United States is calorie count on the citizen hoard’s fast food. Barack Obama signed off on “McDonald’s, Burger King, & Starbuck’s putting calorie information on their menus & drive thru signs” (Rosenbloom, 1). This makes sense because the population wouldn’t want to shop blind. On top of that not knowing what’s going into their body, especially if they are on a diet and want to count their calories. For one day, your calories should add up to the ‘2,000 calorie daily guideline instituted by the Agriculture Department’ (Rosenbloom, 2). Also, Vending machines are now also required to have calorie information, meaning that “Anybody tempted to buy a king-sized Snicker’s bar will know up front that it packs 440 calories.” (Rosenbloom, 3) But, these days it seems “Consumers spend more than half their food dollars outside of their homes” (Rosenbloom, 5). Americans need some help seeing the reality of what they are eating. Hopefully after some of these changes, people will see. They just have to finally start making school lunches actually healthy and not just cheap, because childhood obesity isn’t getting any better if it’s not being regulated 100% of the time.
But, Children don’t have many choices of what they can eat at lunch. Students have to choose between a greasy pizza, bean burrito, or greasy pancake looking hamburger most of the time. If the economy paid more attention to schools and making the future generations healthy it would give the kids of today a lot better chances against things like bullying and etc. For example, a result of childhood obesity is bullying, bullying leads to depression and possible suicide. If Americans really wanted to make the world a better and healthier place they should start with the kids, they are going to rely on in the future. Hopefully the United States will finally take this step to make this land of the free, free and healthy then in the end,
happy. This is a happily ever after in the making, the US will finally be considered healthy, among its neighboring countries if they choose to make these changes and encourage regularity. “The boarder issue is that this firmly establishes the government’s role in improving the nation’s nutrition” (Rosenbloom, 7). The nation has to believe in even the smallest thing like cup size changes, school lunches, and calorie counting for America to get out of this enormous problem called obesity.
In closing, I agree with Alice Davies perception in the things that she said in her article. The majority of American kids are becoming obese leaving them without a great future. Kids nowadays rather eat junk-food while watching television because it somehow comforts them. This act of behavior needs to be stop because it is bad for our society. The kids in our society should be fully energetic and healthy. It is better to have a healthy society than an unhealthy one. Family homes should be serving healthy food/limiting time of commercials, schools should banned junk-food machines, and restaurants could limit the amount of calories in their food to ameliorate the society. Lastly, it is the job of Americans to do something about this growing national public health disaster.
Unhealthy foods are what make the money for schools and that is why they serve them for students. (Schlafy) Schools feel like they need the extra money in the budget, even though it is at the student’s expense. Data shows that nearly 60% of all middle schools in the US serve soda from vending machines. (Schlafy) Soda is very high in sugar and is not at all good for children, but it is still sold in school vending machines. The ways food in schools is now are way too high in fats and sugars. This is not good for the children and very bad in the long run. Elementary schoolchildren have an estimated $15 billion of their own money that they can use to buy whatever they want in schools, and parents have almost another $160 billion to give students for food money. (Schlafy) Big businesses see this as a big source of profit and therefore encourage children to buy their products, and want them to be offered in school because of th4e likelihood of children buying the business’s product. All in all, obesity in the US is greatly influenced by the foods offered in schools
A national epidemic is occurring, the war between food and people. In the United States, about “32% of children (from 2 to 19 years old) are obese” (Bernadac 1). As the years continue to go on the rate of obese children are increasing as well. In the past the problem did not have much consideration due to a low rate of affected children. Now families are suffering the long-term consequences of having an obese child. Some of those health effects are “Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer and osteoarthritis” (CDC 1). A problem with this type of drastic effects may have a solution; method prevention for the future generations and correct treatment for those who are already obese can lower the rate.
Without recognizing the reality of and suffering the results of living with obesity, together with the feeling of losing control with a continually growing weight and avoiding acknowledging the reality of being obese, a desire for change will not foster. The aspiration and willpower to make a change is initially conveyed in several failed efforts to lose weight and is supported by the wanting to take back control and to reverse the issues stemming from the excess weight. A journey of gathering information follows, that ultimately guides the overweight individual to information about gastric bypass surgery. Sometimes this will happen due to chance, but in most cases it is consequence of endlessly seeking for aid outside the conventional methods
The government must have a say in our diets. Because the issues of obesity have already reached national scales, because the costs of obesity and related health issues have gone far beyond reasonable limits, and because fighting nutritional issues is impossible without fighting poverty and other social issues, the government should control the range and the amount of available foods. The cost of healthier foods should decrease. The access to harmful foods should be limited. In this way, the government will be able to initiate a major shift in nutritional behaviors and attitudes in society.
To conclude, unhealthy foods in the cafeteria and the vending machines are the worst examples for the kids to maintain the healthy eating habits. Us Parents have to step in to make changes for our kids because in doing so would determine what kind of foods our kids are consuming. We do know for facts they are not getting the proper nutrients while in school, although they do spend in average of eight to 12 hours in schools. We, the parents, can start to make a difference, by attending the school meetings and being active in our kids functions in schools.
Obesity is a modern epidemic in America and is starting to become our society’s “norm.” According to an article in Progress in Health Sciences, childhood obesity is the most frequent eating disorder (Koukourikos). There are several factors that contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic. Should we solely shun the parents of obese children for this? No, we should not. There is not one single person to blame, but several people, along with our society. Family, friends, and schools all play a very important role in teaching children about healthy food choices and exercise. Children may have a greater risk for obesity due to genetic factors. We need to constantly remind our children how important it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle so that
Today I will be outlining my plan to help education parents and children alike on the dangers of childhood obesity. With this plan I hope to better education parents and children on how to prevent and fight this current health issue. As a parent myself I’m very interested in this topic and help solving this situation. This plan will discuss what childhood obesity how we can help solve this problem. With the proper education I feel we all can make better decisions in our children’s lives as well as our very own.
Obesity is becoming a huge problem in American today. The number of obese children have increased significantly over the years due to many factors. Many of the factors are due to society and the things that are advertised, but parents play a major role in it also. Could these parent’s acts be a form of domestic violence?
Child obesity is at its highest in the United States. With fast food restaurants spreading, new food products being produced, and health rates hiking in children between ages of 3-13, children are at a higher risk of reaching obesity. Nutrients are very important for children to contain in their body due to the fact they are growing regularly. Without the specific vitamins and minerals needed in the body, lack of physical activity, and false parental guidance, children are in jeopardy of becoming overweight. Should parents be responsible for this issue? Parents are accountable for their children’s health, because as their child grows, it is a parent’s job to supply correct and healthy resources to their children.
When talking about school, we think of children learning different subjects, history, math, science and etc. I think learning about health and healthy life choices is as important as any other subject, and that should not just be restricted to classrooms. Schools have a great opportunity to educate young people about the importance of being healthy. We all know it is no secret that junk food makes you fat, but studies have shown that over the past ten years, obesity has doubled to 8.5 percent among six year olds and trebled to an astonishing 15 percent among 15 year olds. If we do not do anything about it, then this generation of children could be the first to live shorter lives than their parents.
Obesity is the condition of being grossly fat or overweight. Many have seen obese people out in large crowds. These people are overweight, and a large portion of these people are children. There are many reasons why children suffer from obesity. The effects due to adolescent obesity are horrifying.
This means that and obesity can cause major diseases that kill many people each year. If schools want kids to die, keep serving unhealthy lunches. If they want kids to be bullied, keep
Over the course of the last few decades, the U.S. has seen a drastic rise in the spread of obesity. Through the rise of large-scale fast food corporations, the blame has shifted toward the mass consumerism of these global industries. It is, however, due to poor lifestyle choices that the U.S. population has seen a significant increase in the percentage of people afflicted with obesity. In 1990 the percentage of obese people in the United States was approximated at around 15%. In 2010, however, it is said that “36 states had obesity rates of 25 percent or higher”(Millar). These rates have stayed consistent since 2003. The obesity problem in America is
There is a lot of unhealthy food in this world. I think that we as Americans should change the way we eat because there is a lot of talk that the united states is one of the fattest nation in the world. Even in school kids don’t get healthy food that parent think that they are getting at school. In school lunches the kids pick what they want to eat and it’s not always the healthy thing on the menu. The food they give in school is not fresh and they just have to put in in the oven and that’s it. There is a lot of chemicals in the food that they give use kids. In the school that I go to the food is so nasty and something is raw. If your kids goes to a school like the one I go they don’t want to eat that food so they buy chips if the sell