Obesity In America

The United States of America has the highest rate of obesity among all the high-income countries. This is an epidemic that needs to be reduced in communities and throughout the nation. Obesity, a medical condition which a person has excessive fat and not weight, is caused through eating a lot of food that is high in saturated fats and lack physical activity. Doctors use Body Index Maas (BMI) to determine if a person is obese. It has become a national problem that affects both children and adults. Obesity is the leading cause of death and linked to major chronic illnesses. The majority of people who are obese are from low-income families. Although, obesity causes chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, and high-blood

pressure that leads to death, it is more prevalent in lower socio-economic groups.
One of the chronic disease that is link to obesity is cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease are diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels such as coronary artery diseases and heart attack. In the body, the heart pumps blood and the arteries transport the blood through the body into to deliver oxygen and food to the cells. If the blood vessel and arteries become weak, it would affect the body and cause heart diseases. As a person consumes food that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol, it starts to build up as plaques in the arteries (atherosclerosis). As the plaque starts to build up, it makes it hard for the body to pump blood to the other parts of the body. Not only does the plaque make the body work extra hard, but also the extra weight the body is carrying makes the heart to work even harder.
Obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease to a higher level. As the body store intra-abdominal fat in your belly, it can affect your blood pressure, blood lipid levels, and the ability to use insulin effectively. This will result in insulin resistance, which increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. Some of the factor that are causes by obesity such as increased blood volume and elevated cardiac output can lead to heart failure. “Long-term longitudinal studies, however, indicate that obesity as such not only relates to but independently predicts coronary atherosclerosis.”
Socioeconomic group or status is a predictor for cardiovascular disease, but it depends on the economic development of the country. There have been a large number of studies that shows that cardiovascular disease has been a major cause of death for people who are socially deprived or in a lower socioeconomic group. Families from lower socioeconomic groups have a hard time buying healthy food; instead they would buy fast food which is high in saturated fat, which higher the risk of cardiovascular diseases. “Several investigators have suggested that these social class differences are widening, with CHD becoming increasingly concentrated in the less educated and less affluent.” One of the most consistent predictor of socioeconomic group level is the educational level. Some other socioeconomic groups’ factors that can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease are lifestyle, social stress, lack of social support and network, economic deprivation, and availability of medical care.
Diabetes is another chronic disease that is link to obesity. According to the National Diabetes Statistics Report, diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Diabetes is when there is too much sugar in the blood or high blood glucose. There are two types of diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. Type 2 diabetes is develop by insulin resistance, which is link to obesity. Type 2 diabetes is when the body either stops producing enough insulin for its need or becomes resistant to the effect of insulin produced. In order to manage the condition, you have to have a proper diet and exercise at all stages. Having a large waist circumference can increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes. According to Obesity Society, almost 90% of people living with type 2 diabetes are overweight or have obesity.
As the body accumulates fat, it make the cells to become insulin-resistance, which is the primary problem of Type 2 diabetes. One of the theory between the relationship of type 2 diabetes and obesity is “when obesity sets in, inflammation and other metabolic changes trigger the tissue to resist insulin.” The metabolic changes causes the adipose tissue to release increasing amounts of fatty acids, glycerol, hormones, pre-inflammatory cytokines and other factors that are involved in the development of insulin resistance. As the cells become insulin-resistance, the blood glucose begins to rise and spin out of control, if accompanied by dysfunction of the cells that release insulin. So, when the fat mass start to increase, the insulin resistance worsens, and the blood glucose rises. Another theory is abdominal obesity may cause fat cells to release pro-inflammatory chemicals. These chemicals make the body lose sensitiveness to its insulin by disrupting the function and the ability of the insulin responsive cells to respond to insulin.
Although Type 2 diabetes is a chronic diseases, obesity is not the only cause of Type 2 diabetes. Genetics plays a role. If a person has a family member that has Type 2 diabetes, it would higher the risk of the individual. Scientists have discover that there are different bits of DNA that affect how your body produce insulin. Being physically inactive, having a poor diet, and your body’s inability to properly use the insulin it produce can increase your chances of getting Type 2 disease. Also, people who were previously identified with impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance are at risk of having Type 2 diabetes.
Research have shown that Type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop with low income families than high income family, but the link is unclear and complex. There has been few research on socioeconomic groups and Type 2 diabetes. If a person experience socioeconomic adversity during their childhood, it would increase their risk developing Type 2 diabetes, even though they are not obese or overweight. Diabetes are two times more prevalent in lower income population compared to high income population. The stress of financial adversity that is found in low socioeconomic group -living in a poor unsafe and polluted environment, or stressful events- can contribute to inflammation which can increase the person risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. “A lower socio-economic status is related to higher stress levels and long-term stress affects the entire neuroendocrine system involving endocrine perturbations which in turn may lead to type 2 diabetes.” Low-income families are not able to buy and eat fresh fruits and vegetable, which increase their risk of Type 2 diabetes. As people from lower socioeconomic groups live in unsafe communities contribute to the risk of having obesity-related illness especially Type 2 diabetes.
Cancer is a chronic disease that is linked to obesity. Obesity has been associated with many cancer and cancer-related deaths. There are many cancer type that are associated with obesity such as esophagus, pancreas, breast, kidney, thyroid, and gallbladder cancer. There are several mechanism that explains the association of obesity with the increasing risk of certain cancers. The mechanisms are: “fat tissues produce high level of estrogen, which is associated with the risk of breast, endometrial, and other cancers; obese people have high level of insulin and insulin resistance, which may promote the development of certain tumors; fat cells produce hormones, called adipokines that may stimulate or inhibit cell growth; fat cells may have direct and indirect effects on other tumor growth regulators, including AMP-activated protein kinase.” Another mechanisms is “obese people often have chronic low-level, or “subacute” inflammation, which has been associated with increased cancer risk.”
The relationship between breast cancer and obesity is complex. The relationship may be affected by the period in a women’s life which they gain weight and become obese. Weight gain or being obese before having menopause can lower their risk of breast cancer by 20 to 40%. However, when menopause occurs, it’s not the same case. When women reach the stage of menopause, the fat tissue becomes the important source of estrogen. Having extra fat tissue can potentially lead to rapid growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumor. Obese woman with menopause have a 30 to 60% higher risk of breast cancer. “A meta-analysis combined the result of four studies on postmenopausal women, which found that postmenopausal women who heavy had a 70 percent greater risk of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer compared to lean.”
Also, endometrial cancer has been consistently associated with obesity.

Endometrial cancer is cancer of the lining of the uterus. Despite menopause status, obese women have two to four times the risk of developing the disease than a woman with normal weight. Obesity increases the chances of dying from endometrial cancer. According to Catch It Before It Kills journal, 80% of endometrial cancer are cause by abnormal hormone imbalance, which is when there is excess estrogen or lack of progesterone. When a woman starts menopause, the fat tissues is the primary sources of estrogen. Obesity cause “several hormonal derangement that potentially contribute to hyperplasia and carcinogenesis in the endometrium. However, some scientist believe that endogenous hormones play an important role in the development of endometrial cancer.” “Japanese-American women increase their endometrial cancer risk with only a small BMI increase, as compared with Caucasian and African-American women who increase their risk only with larger BMI increases.” This reveals that ethnicity and races plays a role in endometrial cancer

risk.
Endometrial and breast cancer have prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups. People from lower socioeconomic are not able to afford cancer screening, which will help to discover the cancer. The reason is they do not have enough money to get health insurance or go for health care. There may not be a hospital that is nearby or close to where they live, in order to receive treatment. However, if it is someone from a high socioeconomic group, they would be able to afford health care or get health insurance, which will help them to discover the cancer early and treat it. People from lower socioeconomic groups will do things that may increase their risk of cancer such as smoking cigarettes, eating unhealthy food, and not getting enough physical activity. According to a study, “a finding suggests that race/ethnicity and SES similarly influence the risk for presenting with advanced-stage endometrial cancer among women who have nonaggressive endometrial cancer, who usually have an excellent prognosis when tumors are detected early.” However, if there is improved access to quality health care it may help increase the endometrial cancer survival.
High blood pressure and obesity have a link, whereby obese patient have a higher rates of hypertension than normal-weighted individuals. High blood pressure, known as hypertension, is a condition where the forces of the blood against the artery walls is too high. High blood pressure causes cardiovascular damage, which can be increase through obesity. According to the research with Monash University in Australia, Warwick, Cambridge in the UK and several American universities, they discover that hormone leptin, which is secreted by the fat cells, acts in the brain to elevate blood pressure. Hormone leptin can be significantly elevated by obesity and weight gain. They used genetically engineered mice, which had normal leptin, that showed an increase in blood pressure when they become obese. Hypertension increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases for obese people. There are several theories that link obesity and hypertension, which are compression of kidney, sympathetic nervous system activation, and renin angiotensin-aldosterone system activation.
Socioeconomic group or status have a link between high blood pressure and obesity.

A study performed in the United States revealed that people with higher level of education and occupation have lower level of blood pressure. According to a study performed in Australia, it reported that high blood pressure (hypertension) is inversely associated with socioeconomic status both in men and women. The reason that lower socioeconomic groups are prevalent in high blood pressure is that there is not enough awareness of hypertension prevention. Also, they do not have access to supermarkets that sell health food in a cheaper price. They do not even have access to top-notch

hospitals.
Obesity is an epidemic that causes chronic-illness that can lead to death, but it could be link to lower socioeconomic groups. Although, there has been studies that shows a relationship between socioeconomic group, and obesity related chronic-illness, the link is still unclear. The main thing that is found in lower socioeconomic group is stress. Stress of financial adversity, income, and other things in life causes the body to gain weight, which can lead to obesity. The stress also affects the organs of the body by inflammation. In order to stop the epidemic, we need to find ways to make it easier for people in the lower socioeconomic group to buy health food and to add physical activity to their schedule.