America's "Big" Problem

It seems ironic that in a country where most everybody wants to be thin, more and more people are becoming overweight. With over fifty percent of the U.S. adult population and twenty-two percent of the entire U.S. population being overweight, obesity has become an epidemic. It has infected not only our adult population, but is also at work on our youth. Twenty-five percent of all Americans under the age of nineteen are either overweight or obese, a statistic that has doubled over the last thirty years. (Koplan, 440) It is recognized as a major cause of illness and death worldwide. The U.S. accounts for 280,000 deaths annually due to obesity and at current rates it will surpass smoking as the primary cause of preventable death. As time wears on, experts estimate that the cost of the fight against obesity will make the fight against AIDS seem cheap. (Crister, 462) And as our country seems to get fatter and fatter, scientists and researchers try to discover the causes for obesity in hope of finding a cure. However, finding a cure to obesity is not a simple task. Unlike the successful "war on tobacco," there are many more elements and factors which must be taken into affect towards this "war on obesity." For one, while smoking is something we as humans do not need in order to survive, eating is. Smoking is also limited to a few items, mainly cigarettes. Eating is, as you can well imagine, a little more vast. So where to begin then?

It is obvious that media plays a huge role in most people's diets. The media influences what kind of food people feel like eating. Nowadays it is the big fast food corporations like McDonald's or Burger King that turn towards the media, mainly television, in order to promote their business. However, the solution cannot be to prohibit the fast food industry from advertising their products. In order to counter the negative influences of the media we must use the media to promote awareness. By increasing public knowledge of the problem, much like those anti-drug commercials we see all the time, it might make people watch what they eat.

Yet, even using the media to try and increase awareness of the problem and its risks will only have a minimal effect. The big fast food industries will still continue to thrive. So what else could be done? A tax on all foods known to be unhealthy could be implemented in hope of drawing people away from the fatty Big Macs or Whoppers. Or to add to that, maybe food considered to be healthy and nutritious should cost less. Lets face it, it is far cheaper to eat unhealthy than it is to eat healthy. Or perhaps food labels should be put on all food items. If people actually knew what they were eating, they might not eat it. But even if all of these could somehow be implemented, it would still have a small effect. Trying to beat obesity out economically will eventually fall out on its own. Therefore many think that other areas must be consulted. Some people view being overweight not as a result of diet, but of lifestyle. For example, exercise has become minimal in a society where cars, the internet, and the ingenious television remote have replaced the concept of actually doing things physically. So how do we make people get up off their lazy behinds? In schools physical education should be much more enforced. It should not be so much of an activity but more an actual class. The present P.E. system in many schools is, put plainly, horrible. For adults, benefits might be given to those who actually go to gyms, whether through their workplace or through tax-reductions, and companies should provide benefits such as gym membership to their employees. There are countless ways that people can get exercise by themselves. Automobile trips could be placed by walking or bicycling. Data has indicated that approximately 25% of all trips outside the home are less than one mile, and 75% of these are by car. (Koplan, 444) That sure is a lot of useless driving. Another focus on lifestyle refers to youth and how they are brought up. Even if an immediate solution to being overweight is not found, by preventing children from being overweight, we prevent future generations from becoming susceptible. However, it becomes a delicate issue because we are dealing with children. Unlike smokers, children who are overweight should not be looked down negatively, but they should also not be looked upon as having a serious health issue. They must not feel like their situation is a hindrance or a handicap. For this reason public confrontation for children, like in schools for instance, should not take place. Instead it must become the parent's job to try and make sure either an overweight child loses weight or a healthy child does not gain weight. Parents must make sure their children eat right and get exercise. In the early twentieth century, France, in response to the first signs of child obesity, started the puericulture movement. This movement focused primarily on weight gain in early childhood. Its remedy was to make all meals that children eat adult-supervised, and that all portions should be "moderate, with seconds a rare treat." (Crister, 463) If only we could learn from the French.

Perhaps the area which will have the most influence in this "war on obesity" is the medical field. The medical field has been relatively unsuccessful in past attempts. Diet pills seem to help you lose weight, but they rarely keep the weight off. Not to mention that many diet pills have been known to contain side effects. The medical field has yet to come up with a truly safe and efficient product, but it does not mean one will not eventually arise. Medical breakthroughs occur everyday, and new discoveries often lead to new theories. One possible lead is the discovery of the hormone leptin. Leptin is a hormone believed to send signals to your brain indicating you appetite. The more leptin present, the less hungry you feel (Kalra, S.P. and Kalra, P.S.) . This seems kind of backwards, but it makes sense. Food consumption has not remained constant throughout history. The amount of food the average individual eats today is far more than the amount of food the average individual ate three hundred years ago. Even the youth of today greatly out-eat the previous generation, consuming twice the amount of pizza and salty foods and a staggering six times the amount of cheeseburgers as the youth ate twenty years previous (Silva 1). This is because food is much more available in today's society. What leptin did was make it so the amount of energy intake and the energy burnt off balanced out. This enabled humans to survive when there was not much to eat. But in the modern world where food is in surplus, scientists have discovered that certain individuals have built up resistance to leptin in their systems. Basically, these people consume more than they burn off, resulting in an increase in size.