by Laura Macario

Created on: December 31, 2008

The Italians obesity problem: Overweight Italians and the effects of sport activities

At present the Mediterranean and the Italian cousin is one of the best and healthiest in the world. Despite these facts the Italians are gaining weight.

The Italian Health Commission confirmed that 20 percent of the Italian men have a big belly that is established to be the most dangerous of obesity health problems. This obesity problem leads to potential other diseases such as hart and sugar disease. Also the experts demonstrated that the Italian children are the fattest children of Europe (Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanit).

The Italians obesity problem is caused by the rise of fast food alimentation habits and liveliness lifestyle. Nowadays young Italians have a rising desire for junk food and are participating in fewer activities outside their own home. In addition those who live in urban areas are spending most of their leisure time inside their residences, using different mass Medias such as watching television or sitting hours behind the computer playing with their joystick.

Italy is getting fat and especially the Italian children. These kids are teased at school, by calling them names referring to their dimensions such as mortadella, which is a large Italain Pork sausage. When coming home these children are mortified and to abandon their feelings they dig into their fridge, sit, eat and watch television.

A research was conducted with relation of youth and television. The health experts of the University La Sapienza (Roma) concluded that the advertising from television produces too many stimuli on food. As a consequence enlarging the daily alimentation need for a human being. Moreover the study concluded that during a television commercial we rarely do other activities such as cleaning, reading or some sport activities. Moreover for the duration of a commercial we remain most of the times sitting on the sofa and eating.

We are now living in a world where everyone is getting self-conscious about their looks. Since we are confronted everyday too the ideal body representations by means of all sorts of mass media channels. This includes our body figure representation such as the good health appearance, pay attention to weight, well-built body and trying hard in decelerating the ageing process. This caused that created the human body as a new representation of a symbol of the individual identity and personal worth.

Young people are getting socialised in the myth of the perfect body and healthy behaviour. Sports may lead to a positive behavior with two benefits: body and psychological. The first benefit is the healthier image of the human body, by exercising individual loses weight, gets stronger obtaining a sense of freedom and improved physical condition. The second benefit is psychological, by achieving a sense of mastery, an identity affirmation and self-determination. These are typical outcomes associated with high-investment in an active form of leisure.

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