Obesity is Gaining Weight in America
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Childhood obesity has
more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years”(1). In the
year 2012, over one third of all children and teenagers in the United States were considered
obese. These numbers are continuing to sky rocket at an alarming speed. The growing rates of
obesity are largely due in part to an overwhelming number of fast food chains, the price of
convenience food, aggressive marketing geared primarily towards children, and nutrition
misinformation.
Research suggests that there is a correlation between the growing fast food industry
and the obesity levels in America. Sarah Muntel, registered dietician says, “Since 1970, the
amount of fast food restaurants in business doubled…Coincidentally, 33.8 percent of the U.S.
population is affected by obesity and 19 percent of children and adolescents are also affected”
(1). This is no coincidence. Fast food has been around for decades, but the growth of this
industry directly correlates with the growing rates of obesity in children and adolescents. Fast
food and convenience foods are cheap and quick, satisfying people’s need for instant
gratification and money saving tactics. Whole and organic foods are much pricier; naturally this
causes people to buy less of the healthy food and higher quantities of the unhealthy
convenience food. This is especially true for middle and lower income families who cannot
always afford to solely purchase fresh food all of the time. Shier says in a study conducted,
“greater exposure to fast food restaurants, convenience stores and small food stores increases
BMI” (4). The prices of healthy foods should be lowered, helping healthy food to become the
larger norm in America. More Americans would buy healthier products if they were financially
more accessible and more prominent than pre-packaged and fast foods.
Aggressive marketing is something Americans see daily. Nearly every website, radio
station, television channel, and billboard has at least one example of aggressive marketing. The
key to these advertisements and commercials is emotional appeal. According to one study
conducted by Randy Page and Aaron Brewster, professors in the Department of Health Sciences
at Brigham Young University in Utah, “The product appeals used in advertising food to children
on television are often emotional appeals that associate foods with happiness and fun, rather
than any mention of actual product qualities or nutritional benefit” (4). Children could care less
about the health benefits from eating certain foods; they want what tastes great and what
other kids their age are eating. Kids want foods that look cool, are fun to eat, and that which by
the implications of many advertisements help them become socially accepted. These clever
advertisements incorporate all these components using elements of fantasy and imagination.
Out of over one hundred commercials studied in an experiment, “statements or depictions that
a product was healthy or nutritious were quite rare among the commercials” (Page 1). So if
these foods do not have any nutritional gain, why do parents buy them for their own children
to eat? One reason is that they are cheap. Also, parents desire for their kids to be socially
accepted, and they definitely do not want their child throwing a temper tantrum because they
will not eat healthy food they consider gross. Parents tend to find it easier to placate their
children with the food they see on television everyday rather than to try and force them to eat
food their kids never see any of their own friends eating. Parents are highly influential in their
child’s eating behavior. According to a study performed by a group of physicians, pediatricians,
psychologists, and researchers, eating behaviors established by the child’s parents early on in
life influenced whether the child was over or underweight. They stated, “the direction of the
reported associations [between parental feeding practices in their children and their child’s
weight] are much in line with previous findings among older children in the primary schoolages, suggesting an early onset of relationships between eating behavior, parental feeding and
child BMI” (Jansen 7). This study demonstrates that the eating habits children develop when
they are younger are most likely the same eating habits they will have for the rest of their lives.
Parents are responsible for feeding their children a healthy diet so that eating healthy is already
a habit by the time they are in adolescence.
Nutrition misinformation also plays a role in the obesity crisis in America. In today’s
society, having a slim figure and appearance are everything. Companies know this and are
marketing several different miracle diets and weight loss drugs. There is absolutely no scientific
backing to these medications and extreme diets, but people buy into it with the hopes of having
a tiny waist and larger muscles. Miracle diets have been shown to “cause more harm than good
and their success is based on weight loss, but not fat loss, since they initially induce dehydration
and a decrease in the muscle mass” (Zamora 1). Once done with these fad-like diets, people
return to their normal eating routines and their weight comes piling back on. The best weight
loss technique is not a drug or diet, it is clean, healthy eating and an active lifestyle (Laniagn 1).
However, these diets appeal to Americans because they are quick, simple solutions that require
little effort on the consumer’s part. Aside from the dietary myths, there are also numerous
fables about certain foods and how you should eat them to prevent weight gain. One myth is
the idea that bananas make you gain weight, unless you drink milk while you eat them. This
simply does not make sense because when you drink milk with the banana, you are only
increasing your caloric intake, therefore you are not losing weight (Zamora 83). There are
hundreds more falsehoods about food that seem to be common in America. Nutrition
misinformation usually has the opposite desired effect—weight gain rather than weight loss.
Obesity is a serious health risk that should not be taken lightly. It can be detrimental to
the health of all of those affected. Obesity “places a financial burden on health services and on
the wider economy” (Dee 1). Fast food chains and convenience food is especially influential in
the obesity of children and adults all over the United States. Aggressive marketing geared
principally towards children is another way in which kids get addicted to sugary, unhealthy
foods at a young age and continue to eat unhealthily throughout their lives. Nutrition
misinformation with its strange food myths and crazy diets contributes to weight gain across
America. Overall, Americans should eat healthier and combat the unhealthy food they do
consume with rigorous exercise.
Sources
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