Casual Analysis: Obesity Prevention

Eng111
Oct. 30 2012
Casual Analysis
Obesity Prevention “Only recently, however, has obesity been recognised as a population wide problem that requires preventive action… In England, the United States, and Australia more than a half of all adults are overweight or obese, and trend data show a dramatic increase in prevalence over the past two decades” (Population 728-729). Since obesity has taken a toll on this nations population, government has made new rules and regulations in hope of decreasing the numbers. The government is trying to prevent obesity by influencing healthy food choices in many public places. Sometimes making healthy food choices are difficult. Obesity prevention should be expanded further than eating habits.
If the United States is worried about obesity why haven’t they done more like offer fitness programs instead of mostly focusing on changing eating habits? Can the United States do more to help prevent obesity than it is doing at the moment? Michelle Obama started a new anti-obesity campaign called Let’s Move. What this program does is it tries to get kids more active, eat healthy and take simple steps to accomplish a healthy lifestyle (Let’s Move). Everyone knows Mrs. Obama has cracked down on eating healthy. Michelle Obama is the reason good food gets taken away in school lunches and McDonalds has tried to improve its menu. It is difficult to make healthy food choices. Mildly tweaking menus really is not going to help this nation’s obesity problem. Yes trying to influence healthy eating behaviors is better than nothing but overall it is not going to help greatly with obesity. It is hard to establish good eating habits and it is not cheap either.
For one thing, eating healthy is not the better tasting food. Sometimes it is hard to deny chili cheese fries, donuts, gushers, or elephant ears over a salad or carrots. A person has to have a good mindset to eat healthy which many Americans do not have. If a person goes to the grocery store that person may notice the food that is bad for them is cheaper than the food a person is supposed to eat. Fruit and vegetables are more expensive than buying Twinkies or getting a dollar sandwich at McDonalds. Today it does not take much to add up the grocery bill. There could be only seven things in the cart and the cost is around fifty bucks. Most healthy foods get looked passed because nobody has the money right now to have a two hundred and forty dollar grocery bill from purchasing healthy
food. If the government really wants to help, they should be constructing more fitness centers instead of allowing more fast food restaurants to be built. There should be more influences on trying to get people to head to the gym even if they have to be persuaded. First of all, lower prices for gym memberships. Nobody wants to pay a high price for a gym membership if they do not have the time to go to a fitness center. Second, give incentives, everybody likes to win something. Whether it is money, a big screen TV, a Wal-Mart gift card, etc., just do not make it a cheap incentive. To win these incentives have people mark on a card; date it and how long they exercised on the card, and add their weight. They have to turn it to the main desk when they are done. The workers at the desk have to keep track of how much the person spends in the gym and how much weight if any has that person lost. At the end of a certain date they could turn it in to someone higher in position and the persons who made big improvements at the gym should be able to win something. If the gym does not work then the community could set up certain fitness days with the location and time of a workout. The workout doesn’t even have to be that long. Establish different lengths of workouts, if a person does not have time to work out then go to a twenty minute session. If an individual has more time, they can pick a half hour to an hour session. Establish how many years young a person to how many years old a person can be in able to go to a certain session. Not only would an individual be getting exercise but other people are around to help be motivators. Everyone could sacrifice an hour at the most out of their day for physical activity. The Japanese society does this to help stay fit so why couldn’t communities in the United States try it.
Everyone argues if obesity is a genetic factor and if an individual can help being heavier or not. Yes, genes play a role in how an individual’s body is built but only to a certain extent. Factors such as: people taking after their parents, hormonal levels that make individual’s hungry, fat cells or having a fast or slow metabolism will affect your weight (Health). Though nobody can blame genetics entirely for the weight they are.
A woman cannot say she is obese because of genetics when in reality she is obese because she is eating a large fry and a burger every day (Health), then going back for seconds, is lazy, and does not care if she lets herself go.
It is sad when a bigger person is spotted in Wal-Mart riding on a mobile cart when everyone knows the overweight person could be walking. Maybe she would not be as big if she could burn a few calories strolling through Wal-Mart instead of riding on a cart. It is a person’s choice on how much they weigh. Anyone can eat healthy, exercise, or live a healthy lifestyle if they chose, it is called being in control. Laziness is not inherited by genetics it is a learned behavior from observations in a person’s environment. Laziness is a major problem of why people are gaining weight and unfortunately laziness is getting worse.
Michelle Obamas anti-obesity program already supports being active. Though, maybe the government should stress more physical activity to counteract laziness. The government should make a rule for schools to make summer gym a requirement. Kids should have summer gym at least twice in junior high and twice in high school for a month each. The classes could last at least two hours each day. This would help kids get out of the house and actually preform physical activities instead of playing video games or texting on their phones. Just setting requirements like summer gym could slightly improve obesity in this
nation.
There should be more alternatives for the prevention of obesity. Instead of only looking at eating habits, expand the horizon and focus more on fitness opportunities. Exercise and eating habits have to work together in order to see change. Offering community workout sessions or building more fitness centers could help in the prevention of obesity. Possibly throwing in a few incentives here and there could possibly help motivate people to work out. If the United States wants to see a decrease in obesity for all ages then they need to help people get motivated, provide more fitness programs, and keep up the promotion of healthy eating habits.

Works Cited
“Health Opinions: Do you think a person’s susceptibility to obesity is truly genetic.” Debate.org. Debate .org, 2012. Medium. 30 Oct. 2012.
Let’s Move! White house Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
“Population Strategies to prevent obesity.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. British Medical Journal, 5 Oct. 2002. Medium. 30 Oct. 2012.