American society is all about possessing the picture perfect look. Advertisements are everywhere you go, whether it be from different methods to help you lose weight or doctors that can help you undergo plastic surgery to make you look "better".
There is no way you can escape the reality that Americans are never completely satisfied with their own looks.
It is sort of contradicting of us to be this way though when it is our own faults for the way we look. For example no one has to use tanning beds, but we still do even when we know that it is proven to give a person cancer. Fast food restaurants do not have to have our business, but they do because they are "convenient" and/or "cheap". Everything we do has a rhyme or reason, but when it comes to an individuals health I do not feel there is a good enough reason to put something so harmful in your body when you know the effects, or expose your body to something you know has harmful effects as well.
Almost two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight, that is sixty-six percent of our population that is at an unhealthy weight. And on top of that nearly one-third of our population is so overweight that they are considered obese, (meaning they have a body mass index greater than thirty). Not very impressive statistics for America.
For an individual that is overweight, the side effects that are caused by it are not pleasant and can be life threatening. As sad as it is, studies have shown that people who are overweight can be targets for bullies; even vice versa, a person that is overweight and has a low self-esteem might be more prone to make fun of someone just so they can feel better about themselves.
The underlying fact is that nothing good comes of being overweight, and that is no secret. America needs to figure out how to become a healthier population. I feel that if we were a healthier population the rates of depression, bullying, diseases, death rates, and several other things could be significantly lowered. With lower rates of such things, only good things could come!
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Kelly, your blog post reminds me of a commercial I saw last night, it was an aspirin commercial and the woman who was speaking was a rather heavy woman. She told her story of how she had a heart attack on an airplane and survived because she took an aspirin and now her doctor has her on an aspirin regimen to help prevent future heart attacks.
ReplyDeleteNow, I don't know all that there is to know about the causes of heart attacks or heart disease, but there is a link between being overweight and cardiovascular and heart disease. According to HealthyMe.com, despite our national obsession with thinness, Americans are heavier and less active than ever before. Over the past 40 years, there has been a marked rise in obesity in the United States, which experts associate in large part with overeating, a rise in fast food consumption, and a sedentary lifestyle in which many Americans do little more than walk to and from their cars. That's a lot of people with a higher-than-normal risk of developing heart disease. I really think that this is such an important issue and we as Americans need to take a close look at what we are putting in our mouths and putting on our children’s plates, because this problem isn’t just with adults, according to the American Heart Association, currently about 12 million American children and adolescents, ages two to 19, are considered obese, and the health consequences are staggering. Recent research shows that an obese child's arteries resemble those of a middle-aged adult, and that overweight adolescents have an overwhelming chance of becoming obese adults with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease. This is not just a matter of how we look; it’s a matter of health and a matter of life and death.
Kristen Acosta
In Kelly’s blog, “Overwhelming Oppositions of Obesity,” she made great valid points and arguments on America’s weight problem. In her blog it states that two-thirds of the population is overweight and one-third is considered obese. I completely agree with Kelly, it definitely has gotten to the point where something needs to be done, taking in account that more than half of America is unhealthy. The side effects she mentions can be life threatening as well as prone to bullying, which we all know is true. It's no surprise that being obese leads to many health problems, it makes one more at risk for strokes, heart disease, and diabetes. I personally see bullying on both sides due to the overweight factor. Kelly also talks about America’s obsession to be thin and perfect, and that it is our own fault for the way we look. I agree for the most part with that statement, but there are also other contributing factors. On womenfitness.net it explains that obesity is a very complex thing, genes is one of the top reasons in weight problems. Researcher Professor Philippe Froguel says that the gene, GAD2 may be responsible for obesity in 1 in 10 people. There are two types of GAD2, one that protects against obesity and the other one doesn’t. Diseases, drugs, and thyroid problems also can be other factors for being overweight. At the same time, America is over eating processed foods which makes all of the difference with being at a healthy weight and an unhealthy weight. There are steps we can take to make our population a more healthy one, and that first step is eating better.
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