Preventing Obesity In America

The leading cause of unnecessary deaths and to the increase in nutrition-related chronic diseases is due to one of the major health problems in the United States, which is obesity. Obesity has become a social issue in the United States where it has affected many families, communities, and health care systems. Being obese is not just a personal problem, it is a social issue that is presented to the public, in which the marketplace and media reacts to. In order to reduce the causes of obesity, Americans should be educated and assisted in learning about nutritional values, there should be an environmental changes to prevent obesity, and promoting obesity as a major public health concern to reduce the cause of obesity.
Obesity is a condition in
which fatty tissues are stored, to a point where it is medically considered as a significant health risk. Obesity does not include the muscle mass, but it includes the excess weight of fat and tissues on the body. Problems that are associated with obesity are diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular health disease. Obesity is an outcome of having more calories intake to the body than putting calories out. Follow by the lack of knowledge to what food is good and bad for a person body, is one of the causes to how a person can become obese.
Educating and assisting Americans about obesity can help them get the help they need in order to lose weight and to maintain a healthy body. For example, the federally funded national nutrition education that helps people become aware of a healthy diet is the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. They assist many people from all ages to maintain a healthy body and to stay away from being obese which can cause many fatal health problems. Though, by having the information of a healthy diet does not mean that the information given is always correct. As Wexler stated, “Historically, some public health professionals believed that the USDA Food Pyramid was flawed because its composition was unduly influenced by pressure from the food industry, whose members know that even subtle changes to the guidelines can affect a food manufacturer’s sales.” (Wexler 2007) Meaning, that the market influenced the information that was given to help people maintain a healthy body, causing obesity and health concerns to become a social issue.
Another solution is to have environmental changes to prevent obesity in America.
To offer healthier options in schools vending machines and lunch options for students can influence their behaviors into what they put into their body on a daily basis. In addition, due to the growing technologies many people are walking less using cars, buses, and escalators, to get from one place to another. Therefore, environmental changes in the transportation systems and by having more stairs and sidewalk can allow people to walk more and to get their daily exercise they need in order to prevent from being obese. As Wexler stated, “ Policy makers were exhorted to create more community-based obesity prevention and treatment programs... They also were advised to enact public policy to create and maintain safe and accessible sidewalks, walking and bicycle paths, and stairs.” (Wexler 2007) However, the disadvantages that environmental changes follow by can be due to the limiting resources such as land to provide sidewalk in a community, or providing fresh produce to students due to funding of the school lunches programs or limiting access for fresh produce.
In addition, by promoting obesity as a major public health concern, more people are aware that obesity in the United States is a problem that needs to be address to show that obesity can cause major problem in their health. For example, by being more aware about the effects of overweight on health can cause a support of healthy eating and in physical activity. In the article of the mental Health Weekly Digest, it stated “...encouraging them to watch less TV can save
the
Health care system a substantial amount of money...” (“School obesity,” 2011). Thus, the promotion of less television can bring kids to become more active to prevent obesity. By promoting obesity as a health problem many communities and marketplace can change the outlook of things so that people will have a better understanding of obesity to be able to prevent it. Even so, by promoting that obesity is an issue it would not totally help solve the case of obesity due to the face that not everyone is going to take forth and put an action to it to help stop and to prevent obesity just by seeing the promotions or ads.
In conclusion, one of the major health problems in the United States is obesity. Obesity is not only a personal problem it is a social issue that affects the communities, health care systems, and families. By educating and assisting, having environmental changes, and by promoting obesity will help solve the problem in the United States causing the risk factors to lesson will “help American live longer, better, healthier lives” (Wexler 2007).