Obesity: What Exactly Is Making People Fat?

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Recommended: Arguments about the cause of childhood obesity

Growing up, I struggled with being overweight, even though I was active. As a young boy growing up on a farm somewhere in Northwest Missouri, I worked very hard doing chores the normal urbanized American would not do. My father would have me do chores every day, yet I was still overweight. Reflecting back to what what could have made me that way; many ideas began to appear in my head, so my research on nutrition began. There were many things that were argued to cause childhood obesity, however the most logical and sensible outcome that came from my research was that environmental, political, cultural, and other such factors were not to blame for my obese childhood, but nutrition was. This statement correlated with my very active childhood. My Father assigned me to do many difficult and strenuous tasks so you could say I worked up an appetite. However, this factor combined with my Mother’s inability to cook a small meal, you can imagine the amount of food I consumed on a daily basis. Not to mention the sheer fact of how much I consumed because the food tasted amazing. Mom would always say: “You have bigger eyes then your stomach”, meaning I would get more then what I needed or what I was able to eat without being uncomfortable. I would get helpings upon helpings of food, and since we did not have the money for the food to be wasted, I was forced to finish my plate. I would get in trouble if I wasted food, which is a big thing for our family.
This brings me to restating my point. People do not understand that factors like the environment, politics, culture, etc., does not contribute to obesity as compared to one’s nutrition. They do not acknowledge the fact that nutrition is what causes the human body to gain weight and that cause...

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Freemark, Micheal. The Obesity Epidemic: A Global Perspective. Durham, NC: Humana,
2010. Web.
Grant, Struan F.A. The Genetics of Obesity. New York, NY: Springer, 2014. Web.
Hamid, Tarek K. A. Thinking in Circles about Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to
Weight Management. New York: Springer, 2009. Web.
Seebohar, Bob. Nutrition Periodization for Athletes: Taking Traditional Sports Nutrition to the next Level. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Bull Pub., 2011. Web.
Stein, Letitia. "KEY TO OBESITY: MONKEYS? A USF Professor Says the Battle against
Obesity Needs to Be Based on Science, Not What Sounds Right." Tampa Bay
Times. [Tampa Bay] 2010: n. pag. Thinking in Circles About Obesity - Springer. St.
Petersburg Times. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.

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