by Danielle Dusold

Created on: December 05, 2008

Obesity is a growing problem in the United States. Americans grossly overeat compared to many countries. Genetics has very little to do with the ever increasing dinner plate sizes and super size options at fast food restaurants. The epidemic costs millions of taxpayers' dollars every year, yet food portions just keep getting bigger and bigger.

An observation made of a family that I know demonstrated how little their obesity had to do with genetics and how much it had to do with food consumption. It's not just how much they ate, but what they ate. One of the kids spent a year in high school abroad in a country where food is not grossly disproportioned and beef doesn't come in plate sized portions. After the one year abroad, they lost almost 100 pounds of fat that they had from the diet that their family all lived upon. Unfortunately, the lifestyle that this person had spent a year away from was all but too easy to fall right back into. The lack of any exercise, the amount of junk food consumption, and the lack of healthy dishes incorporated into their cooking led to back surgeries, wheelchairs, illnesses, and heart attacks. But rather than trying to improve their lifestyle, they continued to enjoy all of America's food atrocities.

To simply state that genetics is the cause of obesity is absurd. How many people were obese 200 years ago? How many were obese 50 years ago? How many people are obese today? The number of people that are obese increases proportionally with the number of fast food restaurants being built. It's terrifying to look at the statistics for our country. ObesityinAmerica.org estimates that the cost annually for obese and overweight health issues is around $122.9 billion, just in the United States. That's more than the budget for most countries! They also state that this is also the same cost as cigarette smoking. Of this $122.9 billion, $98 billion went just to issues involving Type 2 diabetes, a preventable and curable form of this disease. By 2003, every state in the USA had at least 15% of their population as being obese. This is not due to genetics.

A healthy lifestyle, not a genetic test, will reduce the risk of obesity. Eating healthy, working out and eating very little junk food and fast food will keep people on the track to living well. Portion control is also a major issue. By training ourselves to eat the right portions of food, we can still feel full and not be packing on the costly pounds. The epidemic will only get worse before it gets better. Once the number of people that are obese rises above 50% of the population, America will actually start to enforce new consumption laws and get people back into shape.

For more information, see: www.obesityinamerica.org

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