Obesity Is a Tremendous Public Essay

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As it is, obesity emerges in cultures that become wealthy and start eating fast food.

Doctors are also responsible for promoting the myth that obesity is related more to genetics than to lifestyle by misrepresenting the statistics about the disease. As WebMD points out, "If one of your parents is obese, you are 3 times as likely to be obese as someone with parents of healthy weight." What the Website fails to mention is that the reason why parents pass on obesity to children might not be related at all to genes, but to lifestyle habits. A child who grows up watching a parent eat potato chips and fast food while watching television might model behavior after that parent. If the parent is obese, the child will become obese not necessarily because of genes but because of behavior modeling.

Public policy is also to blame for obesity. It is a proven fact that eating too much fast food and processed food is a leading cause of obesity. As Sifferlin points out, recent statistics show that Americans who eat the most fast food also weigh the most -- something that should not be newsworthy. Yet there are important political, social, and economic considerations to take into account. Poor people are less likely to have access to non-fast food options. Healthy food often costs more, as per the jokes about Whole Food's prices.

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When there are healthy food options in poor neighborhoods, the residents of those poor neighborhoods might not be able to afford the healthy options. The vicious cycle will continue until policy makers and politicians develop comprehensive and radical plans that will transform the very fabric of American society.

The same is true for public policy related to the designing of communities. American communities, especially those in the suburbs, are not designed to promote healthy lifestyles. Quite the contrary, most American communities in the suburbs are designed around the automobile. As a result, Americans are sedentary and do not get enough exercise. Again, poor people are the ones that suffer the most because they cannot afford to go to the gym even when they cannot walk to work. Poor people are less likely to afford either time or money for gym and other exercise, when wealthier people do have access to exercise. Public policy is, therefore, partly to blame for the obesity epidemic in America.

Obesity is a complex issue, and while blame is equally shared among individuals and institutions, it is a preventable problem. Individual-level responsibility for obesity must not be overshadowed by the public health concerns that obesity raises. The "disease" classification is problematic because it relinquishes the individual from taking responsibility, and enables doctors to prescribe drugs rather than healthy lifestyle solutions.

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