Childhood Obesity In The 1970's

1939 Words8 Pages

Eating whatever and whenever feels nice, but having bad eating habits and doing both is not worth it, imagine dying and the cause of death being an health issue relating with obesity and just thinking about how it could have been prevented by a healthy lifestyle. Obesity back then was not an everyday word that was heard, but now childhood/adult obesity is an epidemic and it's time to start making a change. The term obesity in the 70s was rare, not that many adults or children were diagnosed with due to the fact of how life was back then. Studies have shown that thin people can also develop obesity by being metabolically obese, which means the person is within the average weight for them, but has more fat than muscle mass. It has been said that …show more content…

Since the 1980s obesity rates in America have skyrocketed with all the many fast food places coming into the world. David Barboza, in If You Pitch It, They Will Eat, reports the uprise in obesity, “Since 1980, the number of obese children, has more than doubled to 16 percent, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)”(9). The portions sizes play a factor in this and are much larger than the 70s and not only that but the food itself has gotten much larger. The dinner plates have gotten bigger to fit more food on the plate, and also the regular normal ounces in a cup has changed overtime to intake more calories into the body. Now a days fast food places are in almost every corner and of course in every city or state. When mothers started working in the 70s kids were always given home-cooked meals, and now it has been many years since then kids are used to not having homemade meals anymore. Availability in time has changed since the 70s, because back then people made time for almost anything, now people make excuses to have no time just to eat out. Wages have gone up since the 70s and so has food prices, but instead of taxing the unhealthy foods the industries tax the healthy foods. In the 70s people were more active and had lots of energy to do everyday things. Now it is said with all the new cars, people rely on so much the adults do not receive the proper amount of physical activity to consume as many calories as