Childhood Obesity

Michael Perry

Professor Floerke

English 100, TR 8:00am-9:50am

13 Apr 2010

To Eat or Not To Eat:

Focusing the Fat Finger on the American Obesity Epidemic

It is common knowledge that eating high calorie “fast food”makes you fat. Likewise, drinking excessive amounts of soda will cause you to gain weight. People today, in the busy, on-the-go, stressful lifestyles of our modern world, consume too many calories each day. Schools serve unhealthy food to children, offering few healthy alternativesfor them to eat or drink. In addition to overeating, especially that of unhealthy foods, children watch too much television and don’t receiveenough exercise. The family shopper, whether the mother or the father, buys processed microwavable food for their children to save cooking time after a long day at work. Yet, the nutritional value of packaged food must be questioned with its exorbitant sodium and fat content. Combined, these factors have created an obesity epidemic in America. While many sanctioned studies and simple opinionates search for ways to blame one specific catalyst on the obesity epidemic that has quickly engrossed America, the cause of obesity cannot be pinned down so easily, as it is the result of many factors working together. Thus, it is of the upmost importance that parents realize they are a key component in the effort to prevent or reverse the physical and psychological effects of obesity encompassing their children, rather than looking for someone to blame.

While everyone looks for a scapegoat to explain obesity, no one company, product, or issue is solely at fault; instead, it is caused by many factors. By definition, excessive weight gain occurs when the calories consumed exceed the number of calories expended through routine daily activities. High caloric intake, combined with few calories expended for energy, means that food is being converted to fat and stored in the body, which over time leads to obesity. While avoiding the intake...