A Big Fat Problem How does society contribute/ influence/ encourage/culture obesity?

Why do people get fat and stay fat? Bottom line, eating poorly is just easier, not to mention cheaper. And who wants to intentionally make life more difficult and more expensive than it already is, even if we know it is better for our health? (**Repeated later, but makes a good point.) Yet over 1/3 of adults in the U.S. are obese (Faith et al., 2000) and it is projected that by 2050 that one in three people will have diabetes (Stockton Record, 2010). Obesity is different from being overweight. Websters Dictionary defines overweight as excessive or extra weight, which means the weight does not necessarily come from fat. One way that people become overweight is by gaining muscle mass from working out excessively or by gaining a combination of muscle and some fat. The latter could be from a decrease in exercise and a decline in healthy diet, both factors that contribute to obesity, but on a less severe level. The CDC defines overweight and obesity in terms of BMI (body mass index), Overweight is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher; obesity is defined as a BMI of 30 or higher (Health Consequences, p. 1). For reference, the CDC also points out that a BMI of 30 or higher is around 30 pounds overweight. The differentiating quality between the two disorders is that with Obesity, too much of your weight comes from fat. (Obese people are always overweight, but overweight people are not always obese). People get obese by consuming more calories than they expend, especially when the calories that they consume are empty (lack essential nutrients), high in trans-fats, and often have too much added sugar. There is also a lack of variety in diets that can contribute to obesity. Most food will not be detrimental to ones health as long as it is consumed in moderation; the occasional sugary snack will not kill you. It is when consumption of nutritious food declines, in combination with a lack of exercise, that the empty calories begin to add up. Carrying extra weight can be quite a burden, but while the extra fat itself can be inconvenient, the load can also lead to many other health problems. Obesity is dangerous. Some of the leading health risks that accompany the excess body fat are type II diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, some cancers, hypertension, sleep apnea, along with gallstones, osteoarthritis, lower back pain, and infertility (Faith, Fontaine, Cheskin, & Allison, 2000). As you can see, while obesity itself is a problem, it is also a cause of many hazardous health conditions. Some of the problems, such as heart disease and stroke, come from having fat in cells, which can lead to the clogging of arteries and eventually the more serious calamities. Also, carrying more fat means having a higher body mass, which requires the heart to pump more blood to ensure oxygen and nutrients reach all parts of the body. This also puts strain on the heart and can eventually lead to heart failure. Other problems, such as back pain, stem from carrying extra weight, especially if the weight is distributed disproportionately on the body. Being top heavy puts more weight on your spinal cord and it can compress towards the bottom (lower back) and cause pain. Any and all of these health risks decreases a persons quality of life, and likely lead to death earlier than an obese individual would face if they were healthy. There are clearly many negative associations with obesity, yet our nation continues to grow in size. One large contributing factor to the increase in prevalence of obesity is due to changes in the act of eating. It has become a social event, often bringing together friends, colleagues, peers, business partners, and potential clients. Many such meetings involve grabbing a bite to eat or even a lengthy meal that is sat over and enjoyed with good conversation. Eating is

no longer done just as a necessity; it has become a social stigma, often carried out in public. USDAs food intake surveys show that between 1977-78 and 1994-96, the share of daily caloric intake from food away from home increased from 18 percent to 32 percent (Stewart, p. 7). That means that amount of eating is being done in public places has almost doubled in about twenty years. It is unfortunate that it is difficult to eat healthily at restaurants when it is so common to eat out. Even if you choose a healthy dish, the portions are much bigger than one person needs to eat in one sitting, and its hard to implement self control to stop eating once the food is in front of you, especially when it tastes good. Although the content is not the best it could be for our bodies, restaurants are convenient and easy, according to Powers, author of Obesity: Regulation of Weight, there is an increase in readily available highcalorie, high fat foods (p. 1). So even if it is not a meeting or social get-together, it is much easier to just grab something pre-made or even freshly prepared for you by some restaurant instead of taking the time to cook. It is easy to turn a blind eye to the evils of eating out, even if we know that we should cook fresh meals, because unfortunately, the reinforcing consequences of eating (ie. Good taste and pleasant sensations of being full) are immediate, while the punishing consequence of weight gain is delayed to some ill-defined point in the future. (Wolman, p. 210). So, not only is it easier and more convenient right when you are hungry (because lets face it, most of us wait until we are already hungry to start planning whats for dinner), you also dont have to deal with the negative effects of your choices until later. Bottom line, eating poorly is just easier, not to mention cheaper. And who wants to intentionally make life more difficult and more expensive than it already is, even if we know it is better for our health? Not only are meals becoming larger and less healthy, people eat a lot more snacks in between meals. The author of Fat Politics, J. Eric Oliver, believes that the amount that people eat in between meals contributes more to obesity than the amount of the calories that come from each meal. (p. 9). The food industry plays a large role in the eating habits of Americans. They have increased the availability of low nutritional quality food and created environments that encourage consumers to eat poorly and to buy the products that maximize their profits. For example, microwaveable, frozen TV meals were created to save C.A. Swanson & Sons frozen food Company from losing profits by letting hundreds of Thanksgiving turkeys go to waste. The company packaged the turkeys into compartmentalized trays modeled after airplane meal trays, froze them, and sold them as T.V. dinners throughout the year (Cardello, p. 1). This is a prime example of companies acting out of consideration for their own profits and the well-being of their company instead of the well-being of the consumers who are buying their products. Cardello says in his book Stuffed, that, the TV dinner was just a way to boost a companys struggling bottom line and cut its losses. (p. 3). Swanson & Sons was thinking of their own financial situation and did not consider the impact their new product would have on the eating habits of the average American consumer. By freezing food in microwaveable trays, in a matter of minutes dinner could be served with little to no preparation (Cardello, p. 2). This introduced prep-free meals, encouraged to be eaten in front of the television. Regardless of the nutritional content of frozen meals (which is questionable), they created a shift in the style of meal preparation. Instead of cooking from fresh ingredients, which takes time and effort, now a box is opened, a tray popped in the microwave and voila, mere minutes later, the meal is done. This fits with the inactivity trend, Americans have become lazy and tend to gravitate towards ease and convenience. Also,

when you are engaged in another activity you tend to eat more because you are distracted and not listening when your body starts telling you that your belly is getting full; as opposed to when you sit and talk with whomever you are eating with, you naturally eat slower (to make time for conversation) and when you eat slower you notice sooner that your stomach is getting full, so you are less likely to over-eat. Yet another way the food industry has us under their fingers goes all the way to the grocery stores. The way that grocery stores are organized feeds right into our subconscious psychology; they are mapped out to get us to see the maximum amount of products, increasing the chances of impulsive buying. Hank Cardello explored grocery stores with Bob Goodale, (who has conducted research for Purdue University on grocery store patterns), in researching material for his book, Stuffed, and revealed these tricks of the trade: The essentials are always at the middle [of the aisle] to maximize your exposure to other, nonessential products (p. 39); Eye Level equals buy level (p. 33) so items targeted at women will be slightly lower on the shelves than the ones aimed at men; and packaged goods companies, like Krafts Oscar Mayer, pay for prime shelf space in every store, effectively leasing the best real estate from supermarkets to make sure that the products they want to sell are easy to find. (p. 34). So you have to pass all kinds of excess items to find the essentials that brought you to the grocery store, the items geared towards your gender are most likely to be in your face (if you are around average height), and the companies most concerned with making money are the ones with their unhealthy products front and center, where they cannot be missed. All of these tactics are clearly concerned with the profit margins of the grocery store, notice they do not place the healthiest, heartiest items where you can find them at a moments glance, those are the ones that are hidden behind all of the packaged, pre-prepared, empty-calorie foods. Economics play a role in the spread of obesity also. There is a large number of people who may know how they should eat, and what groceries they should buy, but they cannot afford it. Also some of them may not bother to educate themselves in how they should live, because they know it is pointless if they cannot afford it anyway. Gym memberships are expensive, if you live in a rough and tumble or downright dangerous neighborhood, greatly reduces options for exercise because not only can you not afford to join a gym to work out inside, it may not be safe to go out walking or jogging in the neighborhood. This is also detrimental to kids because it starts them off badly if they cannot get out and run around starting at a young age. (**Also expand this idea and incorporate evidence to support my assumptions/thoughts.) In addition to a shift in how we are eating, there is a clear trend of inactivity. People are much more sedentary today than they once were. Especially in the U.S, everyone uses cars to get around; very few people walk or bike to work, and it is not integrated into our society, someone who does sticks out. Kids are less likely to bike or walk to school and spend much more time in front of the television watching shows and playing video games (Brownell p. 8). They are starting a more sedentary (**word choice) lifestyle at a young age. Once this lazy lifestyle is engrained, it can be difficult to make time to workout and get exercise. This is shown in that only 31% of adults claim to get regular physical activity, meaning 20-30 minutes, 3-5 times a week. That leaves about 70% of the adult population who does not get a minimal amount of exercise. It cannot be attributed to ignorance either, since 59% of people who responded to USA Todays survey know they should be getting more exercise but yet aren't. (Jones, 2010).

People know that they need to exercise; yet they do not. Before we evolved to where we are now, people had to hunt and gather their food. The lifestyle was much more active out of necessity. Now that we drive everywhere and have restaurant employees handing out prepared, ready-to-eat food, the natural base level of exercise has dropped significantly. However, our genes are still wired for that storage mentality, dating back to when it was uncertain where the next meal would come from. Those who adapted ate voraciously when food appeared, stored energy (as body fat) with extreme efficiency, survived later scarcity, and contributed to the gene pool from which you draw your DNA. (Brownell p. 5). This means that our bodies still react as though we may not have enough food to eat another meal in the day, even though most of us not only eat multiple meals a day, but have several snacks in between each meal. Since majority of the population does not have enough exercise embedded in their daily life, time must be set aside solely for exercising. For some reason, this does not seem to be happening as much as it should. (EMPTY SENTENCE) Perhaps obese individuals are too selfconscious to start working out. They may feel that people will be judging them and thinking or even saying mean things about them if they see them exercising in public. It is possible that they are too embarrassed to be seen trying to exercise. As Wolman suggests in Psychological Aspects of Obesity: a Handbook, obese individuals may need some kind of reward system set up to motivate them to get moving. He also points out that weight loss does not happen overnight, and although most people probably understand this, they may not know that setting realistic goals can play a large role in their success of weight loss. It is important to set goals that are within reach, start small, get started, and slowly increase your goals until you build up to your ultimate goal. One way to increase success in your exercise plan is to have a workout buddy (this can also help with dieting). It helps tremendously to have someone else who is not only relying on you and who holds you accountable, but is also on your level and going through the same process and experiences. They will notice if you skip a workout or if you are lazy and do not put forth a full effort. Two people can push each other, while just one person has to rely on their own inner motivation to get them throughmuch more difficult! (CONNECT TO SELF-PERCEPTION, too informal) USA Today published an article summarizing a study titled Obesity is contagious among friends that explored whether having obese friends will influence your body status. The theory is that having obese friends makes you more prone to become obese yourself. David Rand, a Harvard research scientist worked on the study and said, The more obese people you have contact with, the more likely you are to become obese. Society almost makes it ok to be obese because if you are surrounded by other obese people, you are more likely to become obese or to stay obese (if you are already in that category). The reason behind this phenomenon is uncertain, but Rand believed that it could be that eating habits play a role (Jones, 2010). If you hang around someone a lot, chances are you will eat with them, and may over time start to mimic their unhealthy eating habits, leading to your own weight gain. (**Take out you). In fact, the woman who led the study, Alison Hill, was quoted saying that We find that having four obese friends doubled people's chance of becoming obese compared to people with no obese friends. Wow. (**Add thoughts on this, analysis tie into psychology somehow?) Self-perception USA Today reports that 30% of overweight Americans think theyre in the normal

range, meaning that a good portion of unhealthy people see nothing wrong with their size and situation. This skewed perception only contributes to the obesity dilemma because if people do not recognize that they have a problem, they cannot be expected to successfully fix it. They say the first step is admitting it, so this 30% needs a reality check so they can get the ball rolling to get healthy (**word more formally). But it also relates back to the issue of how being surrounded by obese people influences your own weight gain; if your body type is similar to those around you, there is no reason to think that anything is wrong. Along with the 30% of overweight folk who think theyre fine, 70% of those classified as obese felt they were simply overweight (USA Today). Comparing oneself to other obese people gives a very different perspective than comparing oneself to fit, healthy people will. These numbers portray the idea that obesity is becoming somewhat of a norm. It may be a question of lack of knowledge, as registered dietician Keri Gans is quoted in USA Todays article I think too many people are unsure of what they should actually weigh," Perhaps the general public does not actually know what size and weight is healthy for their individual body type. Why is the socially acceptable and attractive body type a thin, lean physique? Higher and higher percentages of our American population are seen as being obese and overweight, could our standards lie too far in the other direction? (**Expand this idea) Obesity is a huge problem in the United States. An increasingly large number of individuals are consuming increasing numbers of calories without exercising enough to balance their intake. To solve/ start chipping away at this problem, a complete lifestyle makeover is needed. Not just individually, but also on a societal level. I think it starts with each obese person at the beginning though, it will take him or her making a stand to get the ball rolling. In the food industry is interested in maximizing their profits first and foremost, then the public needs to demand healthy choices. The stores will bend to the will and the demand of their customers. Once the stores change their style, the food will become more of the norm and be more affordable to those who might not be able to fork out the cash for good eats now and have to rely on fast food and other cheap, quick options. The other side of the problem that needs a solution is the inactivity levels of society in general at the moment. People are so lazy! Most do not bike or walk to school or work anymore, they rely on their vehicles or others vehicles to transport them everywhere. People know they need to exercise; yet they do not. America needs a reality check. There are unlimited ways to incorporate more exercise into daily routine. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is a very basic start, and little bits will follow. Healthy lifestyles take effort, but once the habits are engrained, it creates a much more satisfying quality (**more satisfactory quality of life is attained?) of life and reduces many health problems that stem from obesity. (**Im exhausted and feel like I am rambling about nothing). Obesity is a result of poor health choices in lifestyle that are highly influenced by todays society. The food industry, economics, and social relationships and influences all play a role in the growing waist size of Americans. That is, compared to nonobese persons, obese individuals tend to report greater dissatisfaction with specific body features, as well as with their overall bodies. (Faith et al., 2000)