It’s not secret that the most powerful nation is amongst one of the top if not the country with the highest percentage of overweight citizens. According to the World Health Organization (WHO,2017), 33% of the American population is considered obese. This means that of the 324k adults in the United States, 74k of them are considered obese. Obesity is classified in terms of a Body Mass Index (BMI) reading which measures. Those of a healthy weight usually have a BMI between 18.5 and <25. A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight while an BMI of 30 or greater is deemed as obese (CDC,2017). Of all the countries on the North America, the United States is the most prosperous, resourceful, and technologically advanced as well as the most obese. …show more content…
All of the other countries, with the exception of Peru and Bolivia, have at least 20% of their population obese. My family’s home country, Guatemala, has 21.2% of it’s population labeled as being obese( WHO,2017). Many of these developing countries as well as better developed countries, such as Mexico, have began to follow in the United State’s footsteps over the last 40 years when it comes to dietary customs. When I first visited Guatemala in 1999 at the age of 14, I was taken back by the “lack of” that this country had to offer. By lack of I mean everything such as non-traditional restaurants, shopping malls, city parks, and stops signs. Fast food restaurants in those days and in that part of the world did in fact look like the fast food places one would see here, except it had no drive throughs and instead of ordering at the register, you would be seated by a hostess and served by a waitress. It is literally like going to McDonalds and getting Cheesecake Factory service; it’s a completely different type of McDonalds experience. When I moved there in 2006, I noticed that the way of life in this developing country slowly began to mimic the American way of eating; fast. Whether