Alison Motluk's Essay 'Fat People Have Fat Kids'

Hunter, Aaron
ENGWR 100 1030-1150
9/26/2011

“Fat People Have Fat Kids”

If you live in America, chances are either you or one of your parents or one of your siblings is considered obese. If it is one of your parents then you have a 50% chance of being classified as obese. If it is both of your parents that are overweight then your likelihood of being considered obese increases to 80% (www.aacap.org). What makes those numbers so much higher in America compared to the rest of the world?
I n Alison Motluk’s essay ”Supersize Me”, she claims that living an unhealthy lifestyle has become the norm due to the prevailing culture in the United States that promotes obesity. She comes to this conclusion through various observations of the changes in American society. She justifies this statement by pointing out that in a ten year period, the number of people considered clinically obese has doubled in some parts of the country. Alison Motluk asserts that one reason
for this is the widespread availability of calorie dense foods. She also goes on to say that increased portion sizes affect the American diet negatively by encouraging the person to eat more food even if they do not finish the whole serving. Furthermore she states that the decreased amount of physical activity in schools is a contributing factor to America’s obesity epidemic. Alison Motluk believes that even the way cities and towns are designed and built have added to the weight problem because of the difficulty presented from not driving. She goes on to conclude that the wealth and prosperity of the USA and other “western” countries has become a double edged sword in which we traded hunger and starvation for obesity and the health problems that come along with it. Even though Motluk is mostly correct in her belief that the environment plays a role in America’s obesity battle, I think that there are other factors that are at least equally important in determining whether or not a person is considered obese, including a person’s family history of obesity, their income level, and the possibility that our standards for obesity may be outdated or inaccurate.
I believe that the most compelling argument she makes is her point about the increased availability of calorie dense foods. The thing that makes this argument so alarming is that “bad” foods are not always in the places we expect to find them. As we saw in the movie “Food Inc.”, unhealthy foods that can lead to all sorts of health problems are not exclusive to McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Grocery stores nowadays are filled with foods that may or may not be as unhealthy as the fast-food we vilify so much. They are filled with foods that may or may not be packed with preservatives, chemicals, and steroid laced meats. They are filled with foods that are just clever reconstitutions of corn. “Food Inc.” showed us that there is a reason that these calorie-dense foods are so readily available, and that reason is money. Fast-food companies and other food producing conglomerates do not make putting healthy food on the market a priority. The only good food to them is one that does not cut into their profit margins. So what Motluk is saying is that when a person gets hungry the first thing that they are going to reach for is something that will contribute to the obesogenic environment, and I agree with her.
Another point that she makes that I strongly agree with is her assertion that a lack of physical activity in schools has plagued us as well. I would expand on her point though by saying that this is not only a problem that has to do with schools, but inactivity in the home as well. I believe that the single biggest cause of childhood inactivity is the invention of the video game/internet. I am only 29 years old so I do not exactly remember the good old days, but when you look at movies or television shows from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s the kids are always riding bikes, skates or skateboards. Or they are at the park playing baseball, basketball, or football. I live in Elk Grove, a city with a lot parks of all different sizes. Since we started talking about obesity in America in our class I have noticed how absolutely empty these parks are most of the time. Ask any kid in America if they would rather receive a bicycle or a PlayStation 3 for Christmas. The answer to this question is one of the roots of the obesity epidemic.
I believe there is one huge factor that makes a person obese that they have no control over, and that is genetics.
I came to this conclusion through common sense (fat people are more likely to have fat kids), and personal experience. Like any other Afro-American with a large family, I have relatives that are overweight, obese and morbidly obese. I have relatives with diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. I find that the people in my family that suffer from these conditions had at least one parent with the same condition. Take my nephew DJ for example. His dad (my brother) is a 350lb diabetic. His mother is 300lbs, but otherwise healthy. DJ is 10yrs/old, 4’9” and 160lbs. DJ is not obese from mimicking his parents eating habits because he does live with his parents, he lives with me and eats the same things I eat. DJ does not overeat and is very active compared to other kids his age. So why is he so fat? I believe he has been cursed with genes that will forever prevent him from being
skinny.
There are other smaller factors outside the environment that contribute to America’s obesity crisis like a person’s income level and what I believe is a flawed scale, the Body Mass Index(or BMI). It stands to reason that a person with less money to spend on food would have fewer choices about the food they buy; opting for what is cheaper over what is healthy. As stated in “Food Inc.”, Americans actually vote for the food they want put on shelves by every time they purchase a particular item. However, when a person has limited resources their priority will shift from feeding their family wholesome healthy food to putting something on the table that will fill everyone’s stomach. So in effect these people are not casting ballots, they are just trying to survive.
As far as the BMI goes, I believe that there are probably a lot of people considered obese or overweight that are not obese or overweight. I’ll use myself for an example. On every BMI chart that I found a person my height (6’1”) and weight (230) is considered obese. I used the BMI calculator from the Stanford University (stanfordhospital.org) and came back with a score of 30.3 which is considered obese. Now if I conducted a survey of just my English class and asked how many people thought I was overweight, I think I would be hard pressed to find one person who thought I was fat. According to the BMI a healthy weight for me would be between 150 and 180 pounds. Believe me when I say that if I weighed 165lbs I would bare an uncanny resemblance to a skeleton.
So in conclusion I believe that Alison Motluk makes a compelling argument that fat people aren’t to blame for their size, especially her beliefs that the increased availability of calorie-dense foods and a lack of activity are big problems. I believe that genetics plays a bigger role than all of the factors she mentioned because an individual can do everything right, eat all the right foods, be active, and still be clinically obese.