Obesity Epidemic Of The United States - 1489 Words

Isacar Duarte 1 Professor Nichols 11/11/15 Obesity In The United States The United States has never seen such levels of obesity before, this epidemic is getting worse every year and the health complications associated with obesity can lead to the leading causes of death in America, heart disease and cancer. Obesity has been growing steadily since 1960, but in the late 80 s obesity levels started to rise like never before. Today six out of ten people are overweight, about 69% and more than one third of our population is obese, about 78.6 million adults (34.9%). This trend is not slowing down as the numbers keep rising. This has been a concern for many people and now we are looking towards government action to stabilize this epidemic. There†¦show more content†¦Now that there is so many overweight children, for the first time ever the current generation of children is expected to have a shorter life span then the one before them, we are seeing a drop in life expectancy. I believe the most important way to change our future is to help the children of the present, so that they can set the trend for those who come after. In order to change children, we need help from the adults in their lives, this can give adults some motivation to change, because if they did not want to do it for them selves, maybe Duarte 2 will do it for the children. Being overweight is a modifiable health risk. Its a condition that can be changed through hard work and determination. Becoming obese puts you at risk for at least six other diseases, which are organ disease, hypertension, dislipidemia, glucose intolerance, osteoarthritis, and cancer. Of these 6 diseases 5 can lead to cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in America, Cancer is second. The consequences for becoming obese are great and the best answer is prevention. Being obese is detrimental to your health, we are seeing a rise of these complications as obesity rates grow. Just as obesity rates have grown since the 1980 s so has