Is America fat? Many studies suggest yes. In fact a recent poll from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that “more than one third, or 72 million, people in America are obese” (Center for Disease Control). This is not acceptable. We as a nation are overweight or obese and it is time we make some changes. The study shows that in America, we are very unhealthy and we need to fix this. Obesity is causing some very serious health concerns in our country including heart attack and stroke. There is no exact right answer to this problem, but there are many proposed ideas. These include, weight loss surgeries, weight loss therapy through brain stimulation, and plain and simple hard work and exercise. As a country we need to combine some of these solutions, evaluate the risks, and act before these jaw dropping statistics get any worse.
But what exactly is obesity? Obesity is commonly measured by using your Body Mass Index (BMI), which uses your height and your weight to configure where you stand. The U.S. National Library of Medicine defines obesity as “having a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher” (National Institute of Health). But how does obesity happen to so many of us in this country? To answer this question simply the Library of Medicine states “Obesity occurs over time when you eat more calories than you use” (National Institute of Health). To put this even more simply we eat too much, and do not exercise enough to burn the calories that we are taking in. This is what causes the very serious health risks that are affecting so many people.
A BMI Chart Obesity is so common and such a large concern that “obesity is considered a chronic (long term) diseases, like high blood pressure or diabetes” as said by EMedicine Health, an online guide to health conditions. (EMedicine Health). Obesity is so common for us today that we treat it just as any other serious medical condition. So, is being overweight a medical condition? I would have to disagree with this and say it is just Americans being lazy. This laziness is leading to some serious medical conditions that could be easily avoided.
Obesity is such a large medical issue in our country that EMedicine Health reports “it is the second leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States” (EMedicine Health). Think about this. Obesity is second only to tobacco use for the leading cause of preventable deaths. Just being overweight is killing many Americans every year. According to Medicine Net, a website that provides medical information straight from doctors, some of the other health concerns associated with obesity include “insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, and heart attack” (Medicine Net). If this isn’t enough to scare us skinny, I do not know what is. It is almost ridiculous to think that people still refuse to exercise after knowing all of these conditions that they are susceptible to because they are obese. Still, many Americans ignore these risks and stay lazy. We put our health, and our lives, on the line by not making attempts to drop the pounds and get healthy.
Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel. A recent study from the CDC showed that “there was no significant change in obesity prevalence between 2003 and 2006” (Center for Disease Control). Although this shows that the obesity rates in our country are not going down, it also shows that they are not going up. This may not seem like a huge victory, but we have to consider another study the CDC preformed that showed that “obesity prevalence doubled among adults from 1980 to 2004” (Center for Disease Control). People are finally starting to wake up and realize how serious this issue really is and are starting to do something about it. We have to take whatever victories we can, and I would say that this is a pretty good one. This shows that we are on our way to the solution.
How can we fix obesity in America? There are two very popular steps, 1) Eat Healthier and 2) exercise. According to Medicine Net “it is not necessary to achieve an “ideal weight” to derive health benefits from obesity treatment. Instead, the goal should be to maintain a healthier weight” (Medicine Net). This means that we do not have to drop a bunch of pounds and look good, but we should get to a weight to reduce all the risk factors and have a healthier life. This shows that it is not just about appearance, but having a healthier lifestyle. There are many more possible solutions to the problem, and we can find them in some places that we would have never guessed.
To help aid the problem we are seeing some strides in the right direction from the fast food companies, who are notorious for serving very unhealthy meals. We can see this when we look at two of the largest fast food companies; McDonald’s and Wendy’s. To help lower portion sizes, which reduces the intake of fatty foods, Mc Donald’s no longer offers “super sized” combos and Wendy’s no longer offers “Biggie size” combos. Many of the fast food restaurants also offer fruit or side salads, in place of the greasy French fries that traditionally compliment the fast food combo meal. Although these downsizings may cut in to their overall profit, they are acknowledging the fact that we have a serious problem on our hands, and they are doing their part to help solve it.
A Wendy's Biggie Combo
Since we now know that obesity causes some serious health problems, we can assume that it causes some serious health care spending as well. This assumption is correct. In fact, Catherine Arnst, a writer for Business Week Online, states that obesity is now “9.1% of total medical
spending, up from 6.5% in 1998” (Arnst). This sounds like a lot, especially for a country as large as ours and the size of our health care budget, but how much is it really? In her article Arnst answers this. She says “U.S. medical
spending on conditions associated with
obesity has nearly doubled in the past decade and is on track to reach $147 billion this year” (Arnst). This is an unbelievable amount, especially when you consider the terrible economic state that our country is in now. This money could be going to much better places in order to help boost our economy, and get our country out of this economic downhill spiral. If we could drop some pounds, we could be able to drop some of the national debt that our country currently has. A healthier country means a country with great savings in health care.
There are many ways we can go about dealing with our obesity problem. One way possible is probably the most risky, but at the same time is very speedy and effective. This solution is known as weight loss surgery. There are several different types of weight loss surgery, such as a gastric bypass or lypo suction. These methods are being used to help treat some of the diseases caused by being overweight and obese. The Toronto Star featured an article discussing this option. The article states that it is very popular to see “surgery as a potential
treatment for obese patients with type 2
diabetes, which is rapidly growing worldwide” (The Toronto Star). Although this can be seen as taking the easy way out it is very effective. To help prove this, a study was preformed that looked at patients who were obese, had diabetes, and had received a weight loss surgery. The Toronto Star reports the results as “At the end of two years, 73 per cent of the diabetics who had
surgery no longer had
diabetes” (The Toronto Star). This is an incredible success rate and definitely would be a route to consider if you have had trouble losing and keeping weight off to get healthier. However, I do not believe this should be your first option. There are some pretty serious health issues that can accompany a serious surgery, such as this one. In my opinion, this option should only be pursued if all other possible solutions have failed because of the health risks and because this option can be very expensive. Another issue with this solution is that since it is expensive, this could also help to increase our very large health care spending. This possibility is definitely something that deserves a closer look and something that could really help to solve the obesity crisis in our country.
Popular Surgery Tools
There are also some very unlikely ways of dealing with our obesity problem in our country. What would you say if you were told that you could lose weight with some psychiatric intervention? Well, Drug Week put out an article reporting on a study done by the University of Pennsylvania that tested brain stimulation as a solution to obesity. Drug week reported that “recent evidence suggests that deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be effective and safe in the management of various, refractory neuropsychiatric disorders, including
obesity” (Drug Week). Imagine being able to lose unwanted pounds without having to do much except have some simple brain stimulation. It almost sounds too easy to be true. But fortunately, once the study was finished, there were some very positive results. Drug week stated that “The authors conclude that deep brain stimulation should be strongly considered as a promising therapeutic option for patients suffering from refractory obesity” (Drug Week). This is great news for our problem. This could mean no dangerous and expensive weight loss surgeries, and no more expensive diet supplements. We could save a lot of money and a lot of hard work in the gym with this new method. It is a very new idea and one that could completely revolutionize the health and habits of our nation. This could really change things for us and make us a much healthier country.
But what about the old fashioned and my favorite way of getting rid of excess weight? What about going out, losing the unwanted pounds, and getting healthy by hard work and exercise? Have we given up on the idea that we can get healthy simply by the sweat of our brow? I don’t think so. I believe it is still most popular way to get healthy, even though we do hear about all of the new technology that can help us along our way. Many people, including myself, still believe in the idea of losing weight by exercising and working hard. But what type and how much exercise are needed to get healthy? To answer this The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released a publication informing people of what exercise is best for them. The article stated that “To promote and maintain health, all healthy adults aged 18–65 yr need moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity for a minimum of 30 min on five days each week or vigorous intensity aerobic activity for a minimum of 20 min on three days each week” (ACSM). This provides us with the proper guidelines to what it takes to get healthy and to help us lose weight. We know that the hard work and exercise will provide us with some great health benefits because in the ACSM publication we read that “Disease outcomes inversely related to regular physical activity in prospective observational studies include cardiovascular disease, thromboembolic stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, obesity, colon cancer, breast cancer, anxiety and depression” (ACSM). This shows us that we can get healthy if we buckle down, put it the time, and work out, that we will see results and we will improve our overall health. In my opinion this is by far the best solution for getting healthy and the best solution for our obesity problem. I also believe that this is the system that most people trust, because it does not require any expensive or dangerous surgeries and does not require any type of psychiatric intervention. This is the proven best way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight for ourselves.
ACSM Logo
A very popular weight loss TV program
I also think it is very important to look at how obesity has become in our country. It is by far one of the most talked about issues in our country at this time, and we are still seeing very few positive results. Think about how big of a deal our society has made out of obesity. We now have people who are celebrities, just from losing large amounts of weight. We can see this most famously with Jared Fogle, or as he is more commonly known “Subway Jared”. He is now all over our televisions just because he lost some weight. If it takes an example like Jared to help get our country in gear, then I support it. But if we keep looking we can see that we now even have shows on television, such as “The Biggest Loser”, that displays obese, everyday people trying to lose weight. Weight loss and obesity have become such a large concern that we are now even seeing celebrities endorsing different weight loss supplements and diets. For example we see the celebrity endorsement from football royalty, Chris Berman and Dan Marino, for the “Nutrisystem” food and diet plan. Obesity is so popular that corporations are seizing this opportunity of obesity being a cash cow waiting to be slaughtered. Companies are making fortunes off of others being overweight. This brings a new meaning to the term “fat cats”. It’s about time we stopping letting corporations make fortunes off of us and shed the pounds!
The Subway Skinny-Man In closing, it is very evident that we do in fact have a large problem with obesity in our country. Although it does not take too much to fix, this problem still exist and we need to work to improve it and better our situation. A less obese country means a much healthier country. Roughly 300,000 deaths a year are related to obesity (Medicine Net). For patients with a BMI of 40 or higher, life expectancy reduces as much as 20 years for men and 5 years for women (Medicine Net). But even with all of the health risks and possible negative consequences, we are still able to reflect on the positive that; the more recent studies have shown there has not been a significant increase in the number of people in our country that are obese. We may not be getting better, but we’re not getting worse either. We are also seeing national campaigns for weight loss in our country with programs such as the “Get Out and Play” program designed to help reduce childhood obesity in our country. If we keep making strides in the right direction we can overcome this. Although it is not an easy task, I feel strongly that our nation can overcome it if take the right precautions to get healthy. We don’t have to be as skinny as some of the models or movie stars on television, just healthy. With a slightly lower weight we can decrease the amount of money spent on medical care and diet supplements, increase our overall health, increase our quality of life, and set the right example for our children so that they do not follow in our overweight footsteps.
There is still hope for our children
