Abstract
In the past, the rate of obesity was low. However, currently, the rate of obesity has increased worldwide. This increase in obesity is attributed to change of lifestyles among people. People want to live a very comfortable life. This has made them change their diets; most people opting for fast foods and junk foods that contain a lot of calories. Furthermore, they are over-engaged with work, which hinder them to participate in physical exercise. Television and other forms of media have played a big role in spreading propaganda about fast foods, which has increased their level of consumption. The government and other stakeholders have a responsibility of ensuring that the effects brought about by these ads are mitigated. The costs incurred through treatment of obesity is enormous and therefore a burden to providers and the government. Many people have lost their lives due to obesity.
Overeating/Obesity
Various conditions and diseases have emerged because of the changing lifestyle of people. Obesity/overweight is one of the health complications that many people are facing. Obesity is a health condition where excess body fats accumulate in the body of an individual. This accumulation of body fats has adverse effects on health and may shorten the life expectancy of an individual. An individual is considered obese when the body mass index is above 30kg/m2 (Centers for disease control and prevention para. 2). Body mass index is measured by dividing the weight of an individual in terms of kilograms with the height of the person in meters. Obesity is one of the preventive diseases and one of the leading causes of deaths in adults as well as children in the 21st century. It has also caused most serious public health issues in the world. The diseases prevalence is increasing because of the changing lifestyles among the people. For instance, it is estimated that more than one-third of the American citizens averaging to 35.7 percent suffer from obese (Centers for disease control and prevention para. 2). Obesity causes diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and other cancer related diseases. The cost associated with treatment of cancer is high and in 2008, the medical costs associated with treatments of obesity averaged 147 US billion dollars (Centers for disease control and prevention para. 4). Obesity is also associated with people coming from high socio-economic status. The high-income families have different eating habits. They mostly consume fatty foods, which are rich in high levels of cholesterol, which causes them to become obese.
Obesity has become a big challenge in the society. The reason for my decision to discuss about obesity is its health implication to the society. The disease is preventive but it kills many people. There is need for society to take their own initiatives to ensure that they prevent diseases resulting from obese. Furthermore, my personal experience and encounter with individuals suffering from these health problems has increased my interest to study the area and find out more about it. I also wanted to educate and inform the society on the best approaches to prevent the disease. Society has the responsibility of ensuring that their health status is good. Many people are ignorant on causes of obesity, which is a great factor that has contributed to the increased prevalence of obesity. Overeating and consumption of junk food is high and people like such food because of easy accessibility. I am contended that this topic will interest the readers. The audience the paper targets include parents and children from different social economic backgrounds. The problem of obese is becoming a challenge in the society and therefore, there is need for all people in the society to be aware of the causes and the ways of preventing such disease. Even though obese was confused with healthy and wealthy, this was a misconception because the health of a person is not determined on the weights or body mass of the individual. Therefore, this discussion is aimed at countering these misconceptions, cultural beliefs that misinformed the society on the actual causes of obesity. Therefore, this discussion will play a vital role in transforming the behaviors of the society in terms of their choice of food and many other areas that may put their health in jeopardy due to obesity (Centers for disease control and prevention para. 3).
Hypothesis
Overeating/obesity is caused by overeating and feeding on foods rich in high contents of cholesterol and fats.
Various researches have established many likely causes of obesity. The most prominent cause of obesity is eating/consuming a lot of foods that are rich in cholesterol and calories. Intake of foods rich in fatty or cholesterol plays a very high role in increased prevalence of obesity. Many cases of obesity were associated with developed nations but this has spread to the developing countries. People in developing countries are emulating eating habits of people from the West. Mass media and technology has contributed in changing of lifestyle of people and especially in eating habits. Junk food and fast food are on high demand. Most parents, especially those with high income and those in middle-income levels, are fond of buying these foods for their children and even themselves. Amidst intensive awareness on the effects of these foods, people have clinched on them in the euphoria of changing to new living styles. They continue to overeat and buy these foods. For instance, in 1984, 14% of the US population was obese compared to the current 35.7 percent. The number of people becoming obese is increasing on daily basis. The rate of consumption of calories among women in the U.S increased from 1542 per day in 1971 to 1877 by 2004, while in men, it increased from 2450 in 1971 to 2618 in the year 2004. The increase in the number of obese people is not always attributed to the high intake of fats as many people think. Most people in the U.S who became obese had high intake of carbohydrates and sugary foods such as sweets and drinks as well as fast foods. In the case of the U.S, increased consumption of carbohydrates and sweets due to high commercial advertisements that run on various medias is a contribution factor that has caused rapid increase in obesity cases. These commercial ads appeal to many people; and especially children who develop interest in fast foods and sweets (New Statesman 6).
I have also discovered that sedimentary lifestyles that people lead contribute to the increasing rates of obesity. People are gaining weights without their knowledge. The invention of technology and improved living standards has contributed to increase in weight in individuals (New Statesman 6). The arrival of videogames, television computers, remote controls, dishwashers, washing machines and other machines have changed the way people live. The way people are living currently is different from the way our parents and grand parents used to live. This has made people lazy and because of not engaging their body in exercises, their bodies cannot burn calories. This makes them become overweight. Nowadays shopping has also changed. People can order goods and get the delivered at the comfort of their home. They do not have to walk to the shops to purchase their products. This contributes to accumulation of calories in their bodies due to lack of exercise (McDermott 5). Cars and other means of transportation have also played a major role in increasing the number of obese people in society. Every body is hoping and working hard to buy a car. This trend deters people from moving or walking to their shopping malls hence leading to increased number/cases of obesity. People do not engage in enough physical activities. Physical activity affects the working of hormones, which affects how the body deals with foods that are eaten. Hormones help in balancing the level of insulin in our bodies that help to keep our weights stable. Unstable levels of insulin causes weight gain, which in turn contributes or leads to obesity.
Furthermore, I have also discovered that obesity can be caused by inadequate sleep. This cuts across all members of the society, children and adults inclusive. This was revealed after Professor Francesco of the Warwick medical school conducted a research study on 28,000 children and 15,000 adults. Children as young as 5 years as well as adults have the same chances of becoming obese due to inadequate sleep. The relationships of not having enough sleep and developing obese are explained by the fact that hormones change when a person does not have enough sleep (McDermott 5). For instance, if a person does not get enough sleep, the Gheric hormone that is in charge of stimulating appetite is stimulated. This makes the individual have high appetite to eat and this result to overeating, which eventually causes overweight and obese. On this argument, there are various factors that will actually contribute to whether an individual will be able to add more weight or not. Some of these factors include availability of food and the level of income to guarantee the person an opportunity to consume the food that the individual admires. Therefore, this is more evident in families that have high income or those with middle-income levels. This is because such people have the ability to access to any kind of foods they want. Hence they are at risk of becoming obese compared to those people who earn low income or those that are poor and cannot always afford any kind of foodstuff they want.
I have also learned that there are some medicines that are subscribed to patients, which cause overweight and obese. The bodies of people are different in the way they react to medicines. Some of these medications affect functioning of our bodies. Therefore, it is salient that alternative therapies are provided to such individuals to avoid the risk of overweight and obesity. Medical practitioners should carry out thorough investigation to find out whether the drugs that they prescribe to their patients are indeed suitable. These drugs or any medication should have no effects or less negative effects on the health of the individual the drug is administered to (Keaise 83). There are endocrine disruptors, which are found in certain foods. These endocrines interfere with the lipid metabolism, which eventually cause or alter the lipid energy metabolism that cause fatty liver syndrome. This accumulation is caused by failure of liver to metabolize fructose in the body which leads to accumulation of lipids and fatty liver that eventuality causes health complication such as hypertension, resistance to insulin that makes a patience to become obese and suffer from diabetes.
Obesity and overeating is a serious challenge at this moment. The world and the way people live have changed. Compared to the earlier lifestyles, the current lifestyle people have cravings to feed on ready-made foods/processed foods, such as fast foods and junk. They do this regardless of the inherent risks of becoming obese and even suffer from medical complications such as stroke and diabetes among other complications. Technology has played a pivotal role in influencing the behavior of people in terms of the foods they consume. Various commercial promoting these junk foods are frequently advertised on television and internet. This has contributed to change of eating habits among people. These avenues perpetuate or disseminate propaganda message to the target audiences, which include children and adults to woo them to consume these products. They convey good message aired to capture the interest or the instincts of the audiences and drive them to buy their products every time they feel they want to eat some food (Foster, Gore and West 3). This junk food is promoted to children and this explains why the rate of obesity is not going to reduce in the near future if urgent measures are not going to be taken. The manufacturing companies producing these products are driven by their self-interest of amassing more wealth by making much profit. They do not think about the effects of their products and the health implications of their products. The buck stops with the government. The government has the prerogative to put place stringent measures to ensure manufacturers produce high quality products. The reason why the government should be concerned even if they accrue income through taxes is that the effect of such products is enormous in terms of costs of meeting the treatment of the disease, increased death rate and loss of people or human capital that may have contributed positively in the economic development of the country. Government has many options to ensure that products or goods sold to consumers are of high quality (Foster, Gore and West 3).
One of the options that the government can adopt to reduce consumption of such products is to carry out an awareness campaign through various mediums such as television and social media through the internet. The message should target parents and their children and should educate them about the consequences of feeding on junk foods and foods that have high levels of cholesterol. The government can also increase the amount of taxes or Value added tax on such products to deter consumers from accessing them. This will discourage many consumers including parents and children from purchasing such products and therefore will opt to purchase other foods.
Other measures are to set standards of quality. The manufacturers should be able to produce foods that have no health implication on the users. This will reduce the level of consumption of such foods, hence causes of obesity or overweight will be reduced drastically (Kuchar 125). It is also important that government comes up with measures such as restricting the number of commercial advertisements that are aired on televisions to ensure that people are not lured into purchasing such products. These ads can be eliminated/banned or if it is necessary should be aired at specific period and should be labeled with a health message warming of the consequences of consuming such products. This will deter many people from consuming such products hence this will help to reduce the prevalence of obesity in the world (Berlant 754). These measures are important and are helpful because they will reduce the costs related to treatment of obesity and will prevent break up of related diseases such as diabetes and stroke.
Television viewing influences behaviors of individuals more. Therefore, children who view ads that promote these junk foods are often culprits. They insist that their parents and guardians buy them such foods. Therefore, by putting in place measures that bar commercial advertisements of such foods, the rate and prevalence of obesity may be reduced. There is also need for the society to change their lifestyle. Nowadays, people are not engaged in physical exercises even if they consume fatty foods and when they overeat. They normally claim that they have busy work schedules and sometimes think that doing exercise such as working and jogging is strenuous. They are misplaced. This makes them become overweight because the insulin in the body is not stimulated to act on the cholesterol. There bodies are not able to burn cholesterol in their body making them grow fat (Yancey, Leslie and Abel 425). The increased weight causes many other medical complications, which include stroke, hypertension and diabetes that finally lead to death. Obesity is one of the preventive diseases that continue to claim lives of many people. It is a disease that can be prevented and the only thing to observe is to eat balanced diets that is authenticated by the medical practitioners and engaging the body. Another important thing people should do is to always find time to exercise their body. They should find time to jog around, walk for some distance and even go to gyms to do some exercises to enable them lose their weight. Many people nowadays are civilized and are illiterate (Levitan and Davis 783). They need to be wise enough to take proper diets to minimize the changes of becoming obese. Obesity is related to people who earn more compared to those who earn less. People and children with access to these foods have higher chances of becoming obese. Many use their financial capability to buy such foods. This is why it is very common to find people from high social economic status suffering from obesity related ailments such as stroke as supposed to those from low-level income.
Obesity is a society problem and its effects are devastating. Society should be concerned about this epidemic, which continues to claim lives of many. People should take their health with a lot of caution and always endeavor to eat balanced diets and do exercises. Most of the victims of obese feed on high levels of cholesterol foods, and many overeat. The solution lies in their hands. Other influences or contributors are the media. Media, especially television and internet have contributed to the increased level of consumption of these junk foods, fast foods, sugary foods and sweets. Parents and the government have the responsibility of ensuring that such prevalence of the disease is contained. For instance, government can institute measures to restrict advertisement of such foods to help contain propaganda perpetrated by the various manufacturing companies through their ads. The effects of obesity if huge in term of cost of meeting or providing health care. Society should join hands to find amicable solutions towards the scourge that has become one of the most killing medical conditions. Obesity is preventable. Prevention is better than cure as the consequences of obesity is fatal.
Works Cited
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Centers for disease control and prevention: Overweight and obesity, (2010). Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
Foster, Jill, Gore, Stacy and West, Smith. Altering TV Viewing Habits: An Unexplored Strategy for Adult Obesity Intervention?, American Journal of Health Behavior, 30.1(2006):3-14. Print.
Keaise Martina. Kids & Obesity, Library Media Connection, 29 .5(2009):83-83. Print.
Kuchar, Gary. The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity: Body Image in Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, Seventeenth Century News,. 67.3/4 (2009):125-128. Print.
Levitan, Robert and Davis, Caroline. Emotions and Eating Behaviour: Implications for the Current Obesity Epidemic, University of Toronto Quarterly, 79.2(2010):783-799. Print.
McDermott, Lisa .A Critical Interrogation of Contemporary Discourses of Physical (In) Activity amongst Canadian Children: Back to the Future, Journal of Canadian Studies, 42.2(2008):5-42. Print.
New Statesman. How to cut out obesity, 133. 4690(2004):6-7. Print.
Yancey, Antronette, Leslie, Joanne and Abel, Emily. Obesity at the Crossroads: Feminist and Public Health Perspectives, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 31.2(2006):425-443. Print.
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