The Politics of Obesity Essay -- Overweight Health Eating Habits Essay

The Politics of ObesityA March, 2005 headline on CNN.com brought late disturbing news to the American public Report Obesity get by reverse life prediction gains. For the past 200 years, life expectancy steadily increased thanks to medical advances such as the stripping of antibiotics and vaccines, but this upward trend is no longer guaranteed. Childhood fleshiness has already reduced the average life expectancy between quaternion and nine months. Todays generation will keep shorter and less robust lives than their p arnts for the first time in modern history, warned S. Jay Olshansky, the University of Illinois researcher and author of the analyse (1). In 2004, the US Center for Disease Control found that at least 66% of adults were overweight or obesedouble the fortune in 1980and that more than 1/6 th of kids ages 2-19 were overweight. Type II diabetes, usually caused by an unhealthy lifestyle rather than genetics, has increased as a side effect of obesity and heart disease is overly on the rise. In short, obesity is a national epidemic.Accusatory fingers have been flying, each pointing to different possible causes for our tubby younger generation and their too overweight parents. Some blame video games that keep kids inside and sedentary and some see the shift toward desk jobs as the reason. Others claim that our car gloss based on cheap gas is the culprit. Still others fault the fat-laden fast-flying food, soda, and junk food that Americans consume by the ton. To be sure, these cultural phenomena are interconnected and no one cause can be diabolical entirely, but one tiny acronym stands demurely behind this last course of diet-related causes HFCS. High fructose corn syrup, the favorite food additive of Coke, ... ...ne wants to dumbfound the pain and frustration of obesity, and surely we wish to protect our children from starting out life unhealthy and overweight. As consumers but more importantly as citizens, we must be informed about the HF CS and obesity for our childrens sake, and US agricultural and nutritional policy must reflect our concerns. Sources Citedhttp//www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/03/16/obesity.longevity.ap/ http//www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL Michael Pollan. The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity. The New York Times Magazine. Oct 12, 2003. http//www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10? spoken communication=printer http//www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/4/537 http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15234599&dopt=Abstract