February 10th
My website for this class will be focusing on the social illness of obesity. I decided to discuss the prevalence of obesity worldwide and its negative effects on society. In addition, I intend to provide the website readers with information about the health risks and causes of obesity.
I chose this topic for my website because obesity is a problem that is present everywhere now, not just the United States. Other social problems such as hunger and contaminated water are not issues that every country faces. However, obesity has been a growing problem that affects children and adults. Why is it growing? Maybe it's because of the rapid spread of fast food chain restaurants. Maybe it's because of our sedentary lifestyles. Maybe it's because we do not understand the concept of moderation. The bigger the better, right? The movie "Supersize Me" begs to disagree.
Obesity is a problem that cannot be ignored. We see it everyday, every passing hour. Sometimes on the news, I hear about a young child who is severely obese and is taken from his or her parents by child protective services. And I think to myself "How could've the parents let this happen? At the age of five, the child is over 140 pounds." That's so unhealthy. Below is a link to an article about the heaviest five year old girl.
If this is where society is heading, we will be the instigators of our own destruction. That's why we need to take preventive measures to slow obesity. It's not possible to completely stop it, especially at this stage. Yet, by taking individual actions - - by teaching healthy eating to the young generation, by consuming in moderation, by being more active -- we can make a difference.
Great sources and a really good (if a little disturbing, in the case of the 5 year old) topic. You bring up the weird relationship our world culture has between obesity and hunger, and that's definitely something you could investigate a little more, particularly if "hunger" is broadened to "undernourished." There's an unfortunate irony that obese people still tend to lack proper nutrition, partly due to the foods that contribute most to obesity, which you mention with fast food chains. Even beyond that, though, there are issues that convenient foods tend to be loaded with carbohydrates, salts and fats, even if they look like they're healthy otherwise (I'm looking at you, Stouffer's frozen foods). There are definitely a few other projects going on that you could link up to -- Kelsi is looking at healthy eating, Austin is looking at childhood obesity, Marc is looking at global hunder issues, Victoria's look at sleeping habits is still health related.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in someone fighting the links between obesity/malnutrition, financial concerns, and lack of time (the latter two usually blamed for the first one), you might look at the Once a Month Mom blogs (onceamonthmeals.com is pretty great). They're a great example of finding ways to fight obesity in many situations.
Of course, if you're in a situation where you don't have a freezer, oven or slow-cooker to do the once a month plans, then you're back to square one.