Normal Weight Raises For The First Time In Years
Everyone knows about the obesity epidemic in developed countries, especially in the United States. Over weight Americans have been the center of world wide attention since it was found that over 60 percent of them are over weight or obese. A gallop poll just released says that the "normal weight" of Americans has increased to over 36%, whereas last year is was at 35 percent. Unfortunately the solid majority of Americans are still fat. In 2008, the CDC says that 147 billion dollars in health care costs was spent on treatments caused by obesity. It is not clear what cause the average weight of Americans to be normal to increase, however many researchers attribute it to the failing economy. A deeper look into what causes obesity should be examined. It is hard to believe that a failing economy cause Americans to eat healthy, especially since healthy foods are more expensive.
Obesity is a very preventable disease, so why are so many people inflicted with this medical condition? There are many factors and one of those being education. A lot of people have the wrong idea when it comes to healthy foods. In schools children are fed packaged processed foods, and their parents do not have the time to cook. It is easy for parents to order pizzas and visit drive-thru's all just to save time. Children learn from this and imitate the same habits. Lack of physical fitness is another BIG reason. Because of budget cuts, children in schools are not getting the proper physical education and nor are they participating in activities. Also, more children are sitting in front of their televisions and playing video games. Because of the time restraints on parents, kids are not participating in after school sports activities either. Another reason for obesity is because adults are adopted to convenience foods. Processed and packaged foods require little to no energy to prepare. Also they are cheaper than whole healthy foods. It is almost impossible to go into a grocery store to purchase a healthy food choice that is not in a package. All of these foods contain refined sugars, saturated fats, and other ingredients that were not meant to be ingested by humans.
