Childhood Obesity In America Essay

Today about one in three children in the United States are obese, and is the number one cause of death in America. Childhood obesity is now more concerning to people than drug abuse and smoking. Obesity not only has disgusting physical effects, it also will have negative changes to a person’s personality. Even though many people are aware of the problems obesity brings, there still has been at least a 50% increase in obese people since 1980. Obesity will cause extreme health problems and possibly death if people don’t change their diets, activity levels, or emotional needs towards food. Being obese is one of the hardest things a person can put their body through. Obesity has many harmful effects on the body. Obesity has become such a major

It is increasing in the United States rapidly. According to a study in the Parental Roles in the epidemic of childhood obesity, “The increase in childhood obesity is a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States, with dramatic changes occurring in the 1980s and 1990s, and a general plateauing of incidence from 1999 to 2010 but at dangerously high levels.”(Moore 828). This reveals that obesity levels have swiftly started to increase since the early 1980’s. Some people believe that this recent increase in weight gain is associated with the expansion of fast and processed foods and drinks such as Coca cola. It is believed that many of the soft drink companies are the main reason for the rise of obesity in America. As stated in the article Coca-Cola and the fight against the global obesity epidemic, “The soft drink industry as a whole, and Coke in particular, has received harsh criticism for contributing to the global obesity epidemic.”(Gertner 15).This suggests that as soft drinks and other processed foods are becoming more popular it is heavily contributing to the recent rise in people becoming overweight. Before fast food and soft drinks were popular, less people were obese which leads to the speculation that it is a cause for the problem. On the other hand there are studies that reveal that dietary factors don’t always affect a person’s weight.