Americas Civil War with Obesity

Tipping the Scales: Americas Civil War with Obesity Joshua Christie Phoenix University Online

These days it’s hard to turn on the television or surf the internet, and not be bombarded with a celebrity sponsored commercials, or the many pop up advertisement advertising how one can lose 20 – 30 pounds in a matter of weeks. The manufactures of these products would love for us to believe it’s as simple as taking a pill, or participating in one of the many new fad diets. But if it were as simple as swallowing pill or just dieting then why has the obesity rate in the United States almost quadrupled in the past quarter century (Meich, et al)? It’s because the main problems like poor family support and influence, and the living of sedentary lifestyle can’t be corrected by ingesting a pill.
To determine if someone is overweight or obese we use the body mass index, or BMI. It is a simple, easy to apply, index of weight-for-height that is commonly used in the medical filed to determine styles of body mass. Believe it or not there is a category known as underweight, and it is when your BMI is less than 18.5. Normal is when someone is between 18.5 and 24.9 BMI. This is followed by overweight which is anything from 25.0 to 29.9 BMI. Then the last, but not least is obese, which is considered anything greater than 30.0 BMI (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). There are those that believe that this is not the best way to correctly measure body fat, and they would be correct. Surely a person who is a professional weight lifter can have the same BMI as someone who has always been a couch potato all their life, but the dramatic distinguishing characteristics between these two body styles should leave no doubt in their mind the difference between what would be physically fit and obese.
The choices parents make about what and how much they feed their family plays a significant role in the obesity epidemic. It would be nice to have the same life as the old television show Leave it to Beaver where the father was the only one that worked, and the mother was a stay at home wife who made sure that a nutritional meal was always ready at the appropriate time. In today’s world it seems almost impossible to adequately provide for their family on a single income. With both parents having to work full time jobs to make ends meet it can make it hard for families to sit down to well balanced meals, but instead they make the option to grab fast food or call in an order for curbside to go so their families will at least eat at a decent time. Rather than taking the consequences of their actions a group of families filed a lawsuit against the McDonalds Corporation in August of 2002 seeking compensation not only for their children becoming obese, but also the health related issues that befell their children. The judge determined this to be a frivolous cased and dismissed it (Mello, Rimm, & Studdert, 2003).
The amount of times that families eat out may be an issue, but let’s not forget about what and how much is being served at home. In the article The Killjoys of Cooking the authors examine recipes from the 1930’s version of The Joys of Cooking to that of the 2008 edition cookbook. In the comparison it became apparent that the 2008 edition had increased the caloric amount of their recipes by almost 15%. This may not seem like much but; a group at Cornell University conducted a study that suggested the bigger the serving of food the more likely the person will overeat. Levitsky and Young substantiated this by setting a buffet and allowing students to serve themselves for week one and two. Each student’s plate was weighed and the types of food were documented prior to consumption. At the end of each meal the plates were weighed and the remaining food was documented to provide a baseline of food consumed on a normal basis. For weeks three and four each subject was given 125% to 150% more per serving than there baseline had shown. The same technique was used to collect the data as was used before. Levitsky and Young’s study proved that the more a person the more apt they are to eat everything.
Of course we all know that if you burn more calories than you take in then you will either maintain or even lose weight, but because of technological advances people find themselves having to exert themselves less to complete a task. This only promotes that sedentary lifestyle. The television plays a huge part in this problem. Before television people spent more time doing things that required more physical activity, spending more time outside, and overall being more active. The reason that television is considered one of the leading factors of obesity is that when watching television, people are inactive and tend to snack. They’re also bombarded with advertisements that encourage them to eat unhealthy foods such as potato chips and empty calorie soft drinks. The average person watches three hours of television a day which increases their chance of becoming obese by 2% (Vioque, Torres, & Quiles, 2006). Not only does the television take up an extraordinary amount of a person’s free time, but along with video games, which consumes almost half of a person’s free time, the average person spends at least 6 – 7 hours a day just sitting in front of a computer or television screen (Vioque, Torres, & Quiles, 2006). If a person spends this much time in front of the television where are they supposed fit time in for a nutritional meal with their family.
Since obesity is one of the top five reasons for mortality, and an ever growing problem in our time, something must be done to quell this epidemic. Educating our children about proper nutrition and eating habits, and making sure they are actively involved may not eradicate obesity but it is a step in the right direction.

References
Center for Disease and Control. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_BMI/index.html
Levitsky, D., & Young, T. (2004). The more food young adults are served, The more they overeat. The Journal of Nutrition, 2546 – 2549.
Mello, M., Rimm, E., & Studdert, D. (2003). The McLawsuit: The Fast Food Industry and Legal Accountability For Obesity. Health Affairs. Retrieved from http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/22/6/207?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=McLawsuit&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT .
Miech, R., Kumanyika, S., Stettler, N., Link, B., Phelan, J., & Chang, V. (2006). Trends in the Association of Poverty With Overweight Among US Adolescents, 1971 – 2004. The Journal of the American Medical Association. 290, 2385 – 2393.
Vioque, J., Torres, A., & Quiles, J. (2000) Time Spent Watching Television, Sleep Duration, and Obesity in Velencia, Spain. International Journal of Obesity. 1683 – 1688.

References: Center for Disease and Control. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_BMI/index.html Levitsky, D., & Young, T. (2004). The more food young adults are served, The more they overeat. The Journal of Nutrition, 2546 – 2549. Mello, M., Rimm, E., & Studdert, D. (2003). The McLawsuit: The Fast Food Industry and Legal Accountability For Obesity. Health Affairs. Retrieved from http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/22/6/207?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=McLawsuit&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT . Miech, R., Kumanyika, S., Stettler, N., Link, B., Phelan, J., & Chang, V. (2006). Trends in the Association of Poverty With Overweight Among US Adolescents, 1971 – 2004. The Journal of the American Medical Association. 290, 2385 – 2393. Vioque, J., Torres, A., & Quiles, J. (2000) Time Spent Watching Television, Sleep Duration, and Obesity in Velencia, Spain. International Journal of Obesity. 1683 – 1688.