Obesity Essay, Research Paper

Mark MyersWriting & Research Prof. Schmit November 20, 1998 Obesity According to the Time article A nation playing with its food, January 1995 written by Barbara Ehrenreich, 33% of U.S. adults that are 20 years of age or older are estimated to be overweight. Furthermore, over 58 million Americans weigh at least 20% or more than their ideal body weight. So imagine that every third in this class has problems with its weight.My goal in writing this paper was to explain why people are overweight in our society. I will tell you three reasons why the Americans are too overweight. Furthermore, I will provide you with solutions by experts and tell you what you can do against obesity.I think that there are three major problems for obesity:1. Mental Problems2. Too much junk food3. Too little exercise. According to Dr. Lawrence, director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center says, we eat out of emotional needs. We eat when we are happy, we eat when we are sad. We have grown up in a way that food is a substitute for many other things. Also, the people do not eat only when they are hungry, they eat because of their habit.The second reason for obesity is that the Americans eat too much junk food, such as Hamburgers, French fries, and chicken nuggets. According to the article life in the fat lane taken from the Current Health Magazine , October 1997, a recent survey found that per week, Americans ate 3 million more hamburgers, 2.5 million more of chicken nuggets and 4 million more of French fries than they did last year. All this junk food tends too have a lot of fat, carbohydrates, sodium and calories. The third problem of being to overweight is too little exercise.According of the Center of Disease Control (CDC), 58% of US adults said that they nearly never exercise. The people do not find the time to work out; they work all daylong, eat at a drive through, coming home and watch TV.In my solution step I will talk about two experts and tell you how they get rid of these problems mentioned before. One of them is Anthony Robbins who wrote the national bestseller The giant awaken within.

Anthony Robbins said that you have to change first your habits in order to lose weight. That means that you have to change your focus. It has not to be a must to eat healthy food; no it has actually been a pleasure for you to eat healthy food. Only then your mind and later your body is able to switch their habits. Another expert is Dr Applegate that wrote the article Burning Desire published in the Runner s World in April 1998. She says that it is very important what you eat because everything is restored and burnt by your body, furthermore she stated to eat less junk food, and eat more fruits, vegetables, and drink water. My last solution in how to reduce the overweight problem is more exercise! For Anthony Robbins there are two major ways in exercising, the aerobic and anaerobic way. The anaerobic, such as lifting weights is for losing weights not very efficient. With this method you are more likely to gain weight. The aerobic method is much more efficient; it means to refer to exercise over a period of time such as running, swimming and riding the bike.Imagine a world were you enjoy healthy food and there is no fast food. Also, imagine that you have more time to eat and to exercise, how much fun would that be. Some solutions to help improve the health of those people with obesity is to eat healthier, meaning more vegetables and fruits and drink only water not soda anymore. Our cafeteria provides it so take advantage of that. Furthermore exercise more, we have the facilities here on campus also. For the beginning go three times a week running about 5-15 minutes, than increase that wisely. Likewise, you can get help from the UCLA Obesity Center under http://www.ccon.com/uclarfo or call 310/825-8173. They can provide you with former information and work out a program only designed for you.So finally, I want to keep that in mind: If you do not change, how could your children change?