Informative Speech on the Causes of Lifestyle Diseases

Informative Speech on the Causes of Lifestyle Diseases: Outline of the Speech

Introduction
Attention-getting statement: Lifestyle diseases are the world’s currently leading killer diseases. They are non-communicable and their causes depend on the lifestyles of people. Lifestyle diseases affect the developing countries most, and WHO reports that nine out of ten people who die from lifestyle diseases are from the developing countries (Caldwell 1). According to WHO, tobacco-smoking, alcoholism, poor diets, and lack of exercise are the leading causes of lifestyle diseases (Caldwell 1).
Credibility: Understanding the causes of lifestyle diseases is an essential component of managing lifestyle diseases. If the public does not understand the causes of lifestyle diseases, it is difficult for them to change their bad lifestyles, meaning that they will not prevent the diseases.
Relevancy statement: In 2008, 63% of the global deaths were from lifestyle diseases, showing that the management of the diseases is still poor (Caldwell 1). Addressing the public on the root causes of lifestyle diseases is, therefore, relevant, and as Caldwell notes, most of the efforts of educating the public should focus on the developing countries where 90% of deaths due to lifestyle diseases occur.
Central Idea (Thesis): Human behavior choices, lack of public information, and poverty are the causes of lifestyle diseases.
Main Body
First main point: Poor choice of lifestyle is one of the causes of lifestyle diseases.
Supporting point: Tobacco smoking causes lung cancer and other lung diseases. Tobacco smoking also worsens other diseases, for example, Asthma (Golubic 1).
Supporting point: Poor diet, for example, high-fat foods also causes the lifestyle diseases. Obesity is a disease linked to high-fat consumption. Many people consume fast foods which have a lot of fats that accumulate in the body.

Supporting point: Lack of exercising is also linked to lifestyle diseases. Physical exercising helps the body to get rid of excess fats. According to Golubic (1), people who do not exercise have high chances of contracting cardiovascular disease because of fat accumulation around the heart.

Second Main Point: Many people contract lifestyle diseases because they lack information on how to prevent the diseases (Preventing Cardiovascular diseases 1).
Supporting point: Out of every ten deaths from lifestyle diseases, nine of the deaths are in developing countries where literacy levels are low. It means that the public lacks information about the risk factors of lifestyle diseases and how to manage them. Illiteracy is an impediment against communicating issues on prevention and management of lifestyle diseases (Caldwell 1).
Supporting point: Because of lack of information, there is low possibility of preventing the diseases. Preventing Cardiovascular Diseases (1) explains that people who are aged 40 years and above should visit the hospitals for an assessment of their risk levels in relation to contracting cardiovascular diseases. Such information is important as a way of preventing and detecting the disease when it is early enough to cure it. However, since many people may lack such information, cardiovascular diseases are detected at advanced stages when their management is difficult.
Third Main Point: Poverty also causes lifestyle diseases.
Supporting Point: Poor people cannot afford healthy food. In most developing countries, healthy food is expensive and only the upper class citizens can afford it. Many low-class citizens like consuming fast foods which have high content of calories. The high-fat foods are characteristically cheap so they can afford them easily.
Supporting Point: The global poverty index rises along the increase in lifestyle diseases. Their simultaneous increases means that poverty and the lifestyle diseases are closely related, poverty being the cause of the diseases. According to Food Research and Action Center Website, poor people have limited access to “full-service groceries,” (1). They cannot access healthy varieties of food because of their low ability to afford them, forcing them to consume the less healthy foods.

Supporting Point: The low income communities are the main targets of the first food vendors and kiosks. Most of the kiosks and vendors target places like schools where there is high consumption of unhealthy foods. The poor people do not understand the healthy alternatives of foods, and even if they understand them, their economic status does not allow them to buy the healthier foods.
Conclusion

Restatement of the thesis: Human behavior choices, lack of information, and poverty are the causes of lifestyle diseases, and tackling the diseases requires addressing the areas of their causes.
Summary of the main ideas: The choices that people make, for example, smoking cigarettes, eating high fat, high sugar, and high salt foods, and excessive drinking of alcohol cause lifestyle diseases. In addition, poor people cannot afford the expensive varieties of healthy food. Their social status compels them to eat unhealthy foods that cause the lifestyle diseases. Poor people also lack awareness, e.g. on the importance of exercising. Public information is important in the management of the diseases because many people are not aware about the diseases and how they can prevent or manage them. There is need to create awareness about going for assessment of the diseases. Poverty, making wrong lifestyle choices, and lack of information are issues that are closely related, making the lifestyle diseases highly common among the low class citizens.