The obesity epidemic is a major concern for the health of the population in the United States, targeting 2 in 5 adults and 1 in 4 children. America is in the top ten of the most obese countries. Even though the US government has attempted to regulate nutritious food, they didn’t have much success as seen by the current obesity epidemic. Other countries succeeded to curb this epidemic with great focus on healthy nutritious school lunches, mandated by their governments. If society allowed the government to regulate what we eat, children would have better and healthier lunches and they would limit a person’s chances of being obese and/or overweight. In many countries in Europe, healthy school lunches mandatory. In the article Food Fare, Cindy …show more content…
In the article Obesity – The new Frontier of Public Health Law, it states that “several factors have led to a reexamination of the historical view that food consumption and physical activity are inappropriate subjects for government regulation” (Mello). Even if we did try to change people’s ways, it would not work due to high costs. “Emerging results about the economic and human costs of obesity have galvanized interest in greater government involvement by medicalizing the problem” (Mello). There are many people that think that the government should not regulate food due to many principles. “Tensions exist between these interventions and the freedoms of choice, speech, and contrast.” (Mello). Advertisements and commercials influence what we eat, resulting in uncontrollable desires for the certain food. “A growing literature also links exposure to the advertising of unhealthful foods to decisions about consumption and to overweight and obesity” (Mello). American children and adults are exposed to approximately 40,000 food advertisements per year, seventy-two percent which are for candy, cereal, and fast food. This tells us that commercials control what everyone buys and what we do not want to