Obesity: The Growing Problem
It is noticeable that wherever you go, people are getting fatter. This phenomenon of eating more and working out less is taking over, giving a present of many diseases and causing people to die. I chose this topic because obesity caused my mother’s heart attack, and has affected other people in my family health wise. Therefore, I know it closely that how dominating obesity can be on a person’s health. Because of this, I believe that everyone should be educated about the causes of obesity, the prevention of it, and the results of choosing to remain overweight. People should also learn how to read nutrition labels correctly and know what kinds of diets are healthy. Perhaps with time and education, people will start taking care of their bodies and teach others to do so as well.
As I mentioned above, I knew obesity was an enormous problem in the United
States and the rest of the world. However, until I did some research, I had no idea how many people were actually overweight and/or obese. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese” (AOA Fact Sheets). Thus in a 1999 to 2000 survey done by the CDC, 64.5 percent of people in the U.S. that were adults (age 20 and over) are overweight while 30.5 are obese. Meanwhile, severe obesity has almost doubled since the 1988 to 1994 survey, with 4.7 percent of the population falling into this category (AOA Fact Sheets).
In order to figure out if someone is overweight and/or obese, a person’s BMI
(Body Mass Index) must be calculated. BMI is basically “a common measure expressing the relationship (or ratio) of weight-to-height” (CDC Nutrition and Physical Activity). According to the CDC site, people who have a BMI between 25 and 29.9 are overweight, and people with a BMI of 30 or more are...