Obese America :: Health

Fast-food restaurants have become archetypal in the past 30 years, and nearly all of Americans takes advantage of the tasty meals, quick service, and cheap prices. Convenient as they seem, these meals contain almost no nutrients. They are comprised mostly of saturated fats and highly refined carbohydrates and are loaded with sodium and sugar. Almost every fast food restaurant we all love to go to, doesn’t give us many option. When it comes to picking a healthy choice, instead of choosing between low fat or wheat we have the option of choosing how many patties, bacon or no bacon, cheese in the crust, how big of a soda, crispy or extra crispy. These are not very good alternatives. Another problem is when we see those large 64 ounce sodas at 7/11 that are way more for one person. Young kids buy them because they look cool, and adults, because they think it’s a good deal for a lot of soda. Why is that that in this country we have opportunities to many things we want, but wh en it comes to eating it seems like some of us always go the easy processed way. Why are there no alternatives to what we choose to eat or drink, especially in the fast food industry? The United States is home to the some of the most obese people in the world. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), obesity in adults has increased by 60% within the past twenty years and obesity in children has tripled in the past thirty years (Brownell). A staggering 33% of American adults are obese and obesity-related deaths have climbed to more than 300,000 a year, second only to tobacco-related deaths (Finkelstein). It is strange to see that America’s obesity numbers just keep getting higher and higher with really little signs of improvement. The people don’t have the problem it’s the Unites States in general that has the problem. According to Dr. Kelly Brownell, PhD, an expert on American diet and health, a study was conducted with the Pima Indians who live both in Mexico and Arizona. It was found that those Pima Indians who live in Arizona have much higher rates of obesity than their counterparts in Mexico, even though both group s of people have the same genetic and ethnic background. This is also true for many migrants of the US who have a much higher obesity rate than their relatives back home (Puhl).