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Causes Of Obesity In America Essay

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Once again, for the third time this week, Jimmy and his family are having McDonald's. However, he and his family eat a healthy diet on a regular basis throughout the week. In America today, cases like Jimmy's are not uncommon at all. There are many American families who struggle to make sufficient income and therefore, turn to cheap alternatives for food. In most cases it's fast food. However, the question proposed to America is, is fast food really to blame for obesity? Imagine that all the fast food chains in America vanished today. Would America's obesity problem suddenly be fixed? The answer, simply put is no. Fast food is not the cause of obesity in America. It's the rest of our diet. Many American households eat unhealthy diets consisting of many saturated fats, high in sugar, high in salt, and high in unburned calories. This type of diet especially becomes a problem when it is a person's sole source of nutrition, and they don't eat properly to balance their diets. If Americans continue eating this way, and continue to increase obesity nationwide, this can turn to an increase in health problems which may lead to death. This is the case with most of …show more content…

The CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, determined that, “more than one-third of (34.9% or 78,6 million) American adults are obese” (Adult Obesity Facts, cdc.gov). Diseases that can be directly correlated with obesity include, “heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer” (Adult Obesity Facts, cdc.gov). As a result, “the estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars the medical costs for people who are obese were $1, 429 higher than those of normal weight ” (Adult Obesity Facts, cdc.gov). The causes of such an obesity epidemic should not be blamed on the availability of fast food. It is clear that obesity has more deeply rooted impacts on Americans than it seems on the

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