America The Fatty
Introduction
America's Obesity Epidemic' has truly become just that, a full fledged epidemic. Over these previous years the number of overweight Americans has risen to enormous numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are approximately 296,000,000 Americans currently living in the United States. (National) Also according to the United States Census Bureau, 56 percent of those Americas are overweight and 21 percent are obese. (United) That is approximately 165,760,000 Americans who are overweight and 62,160,000 of those Americans are obese. Those numbers are staggering.
Why has this happened? How could so many Americans have become so overweight? "The National Institutes of Health estimates that 97 million American adults 55 percent of the adult population now are overweight or obese." (Bettelheim) This causes for many different health problems including high blood pressure, and diabetes. These chronic health diseases cause annually nearly 300,000 deaths. While $3 billion dollars a year is spent studying diseases like cancer a mere $100 million dollars is spent to combat obesity. (Bettelheim) The causes, effects, and methods of treating this epidemic will all be probed and examined throughout this paper.
Why Have We Become So Fat?
There are a number of different reasons for the occurrence of such weight gain. Mainly our increased technology, excessive advertising, and fast-food industry are all to blame for our country's spike in percent of people who are overweight and are obese.
As our technology increases and daily luxuries make many daily routines less strenuous on the body. As the times progress it is not uncommon for there to be 2 and even 3 cars per household. This cuts down drastically on the amount of walking/running that the everyday person does. Computers have become such a necessary commodity in our lives, many people now work at home watching a...
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