Our Country's Escalating Obesity Situation

Being overweight is one of these issues that we have all been hearing about for the last few years. Things have been getting gradually worse for the last two decades, but we are just realizing this. The country with the greatest obesity rate in the world is the United States. The number of fat adolescents and adults has grown by 100% in the past quarter century. Nearly a third of the total adults over 20 and seventeen percent of the total kids were obese as of 2004. This means that millions are too big and risking their health. The prevalence of obesity continues to rise in America and other developed nations and is considered one of the biggest health threats in the country. What happened to make us all so big? Many environmental factors that are now an American way of life are believed to be the causes of this general increased girth.

Americans began to change factors of daily activity that made them more sedentary in the 1980's. The first is the eating habits. Meals that used to be eaten at home and prepared by the homemaker are now more and more often eaten in restaurants and fast food chains. Due to competition, restaurants now have portion sizes that double or even triple the ones back in the 60's. A cheeseburger in many of today's most popular sit-down restaurants can be double or triple the size of a McDonald's Big Mac, even though the popular chain has been under fire the last few years as the leading culprit for America's weight problem. People that are used to eating everything on their plates can sit down and get their daily amount of calories in one sitting with one of these super sized meals.

Affluence is another major factor that seems to link to obesity. As people in developed nations acquire more and more wealth, the need or concern to conserve is diminished gradually. Children that a couple of generations ago would have been more limited on food choices because of a parent's budget nowadays are given wider and bigger choices in what they partake in. With parents that eat out constantly because disposable income allows them to, children form their earliest eating habits with rich, high calorie restaurant foods. More Americans are less concerned about where their food comes from and concentrate more on their personal cravings in a country that produces nearly triple what it's whole population eats.

Many Americans have a sedentary lifestyle, another major factor of obesity. More adults have cars and use them to travel everywhere they go, even if it is a very short distance. Busy lifestyles and hectic work schedules make it difficult for many people to find the time to work out. More jobs are becoming less active as technology is advanced. So now many Americans will work at the office on a computer all day and do nothing active all day because they are tired from their job.

Obesity affects you whether you're in those demographics or not. An estimated 275,000,000 dollars a year is what Americans are paying extra in air fares due to increased fuel costs to haul the extra weight and lawsuits to widen passenger seats brought on by obese plaintiffs. A yearly cost of 78,500,000,000 dollars is the cost of treating the number of health complications brought on by obesity, as it makes up nearly 10% of all medical expenditures. The cheeseburger bill of 2004 was introduced by lawmakers to attempt to offer some protection for food producers after lawsuits with obese plaintiffs became so prevalent.

BMI, or body mass index is what is used to measure obesity. The higher the BMI, the more likely the person is to have serious health issues. There are three levels of obesity; mild obesity with a BMI of 30+, morbid obesity at BMI 40+, and malignant obesity with a BMI of 50+. An average person has half the risk of suffering a deadly medical problem than anoverweight individual who is 40% overweight. Obesity kills an estimated 112,000 Americans per year. The risk of a heart attack, stroke, cancer, liver disease, and diabetes are just a few of the possible ailments that come along with being overweight. There are also a number of non-deadly ailments like depression, loss of bowel control, breathing problems, and swollen legs.

Michael Usry is a top affiliate of weight loss and the writer of the online health series "Beauty and Health in Plain Entglish".