Nowadays you can’t turn on the TV without hearing the mentioning of the ever-growing obesity epidemic that’s taking the U.S. by storm.
I’ve watched several specials on TV based upon finger pointing.
The debate is all about whose fault it is?
The food manufactures and fast food restaurants claim that it’s not their fault because they are not forcing the population to overeat.
On the other hand, the American public claims that the fast food restaurants and food manufactures are mostly to blame for this epidemic.
Therefore, should be held responsible at least in part.
What’s The True Definition Of Obesity?
According to the American Heart Association, obesity is simply defined as being 30% or more over your ideal body weight, obesity and blood pressure are clearly related. That’s why all obese hypertensive adults should try to get within 15% of their desired body weight.
Who’s To Blame?
This is a very loaded controversial and complex question, so let me briefly share my point of view.
First of all, food manufactures and fast food companies spend millions upon millions of dollars on marketing their products to consumers.
If you couple that heavy brand awareness advertising with the instant lifestyles that we all live today, you have a perfect recipe for physical disaster.
Just think about it for a moment.
Both parents have to work in order to make ends meet.
We have more on our plates than we can manage.
Our stress levels are through the roof.
97% percent of the population is living paycheck to paycheck.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture.
All the above creates massive amounts of stress and the lack of time to prepare healthy meals.
So what’s the alternative?
Fast foods.
Not only are the food manufactures and fast food establishments targeting adults, they also target young kids using popular cartoon characters plastered right on their packages.
This creates an anchor in the minds of young kids that link their food products to those popular cartoon characters, which creates pleasure to consuming them.
Advertisers know that there’s nothing more powerful than being able to get the people to link pleasure to consuming or using their products.
In other words, it’s an uphill battle to get consumers to disassociate their cause of obesity with their bad eating habits.
On the other hand, regardless of the heavy advertising that’s being carried out by food companies, consumers need to take responsibility for what goes into their mouths.
I don’t agree with all of the lawsuits that are placed against the food companies, because we all know either instinctively or have been taught what’s good for us and what’s not.
For example, most of us know that fried chicken is extremely unhealthy when consumed in large quantities and can cause high blood pressure, clog your arteries, and increase your chances of developing heart disease.
But some people will act as if they didn’t know that and turn around and file a lawsuit instead of taking responsibility.
Startling Obesity Statistics
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, show that 30% of the U.S. adults 20 years of age and older (over 60 million) are obese. This increase is not limited to adults. The percentage of young people who are overweight has more than tripled since 1980. Among children and teens aged 6-19 years, 16% (over 9 million young people) are considered overweight.
Those percentages are staggering and the sad part is that our obesity epidemic is worsening.
Is There A Resolution?
There’s definitely no clear-cut answer as to what the resolution is because until consumers take responsibility for their own health and the food companies manufacture healthier products, we are going to eat ourselves into an early grave.
Harsh as that may sound, but the reality is that food companies have to generate tons of revenue for their investors as a legal obligation and will not stop manufacturing and advertising their products no time soon.
So as a consumer of food products are you going to wait until you’re lying on an operating table plagued with heart disease to take responsibility for your own health with your only response being, “It’s the food companies fault?”
No, you simply change your eating habits by consuming healthier foods, exercise at least 3 times per week, and practice portion control.
I know that’s an overly simplified solution to attaining and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but my point is that you must take control of your physical health and not play the blame game even if you believe the food companies are wrong.
Each one of us has only one body in which we are responsible for taking care of.
So, let’s all step up our health and fitness game.
