“More than 14% of US households (17.4 million) are ‘food insecure’ - defined by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as having their access to adequate food and nutrition limited due to cost, proximity and/or other resources.” Poor diet is one of the causes to the obesity epidemic in America. However, with the proper knowledge, consumers will be able to go into their local grocery store and find the makings of a healthy home cooked meal. Food made by scratch can be inexpensive, nutritious and not time consuming.
As of 2015, 68.6% of American adults and 32% of American children are defined as overweight or obese. According to the CDC, the definition of obesity and overweight is in accordance to the Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI assesses height and weight with adult males and females. One takes the person’s weight in kilograms and divides by the square of the height in meters. A normal BMI level is between 18.5 and 24.9. Overweight is between 25 and 29.9 while obese is 30 and over. Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi have the highest obesity rates of adults in the USA - ranging from 35.5% to 35.9% of the population. North Carolina is ranked 24th with 28.9% of adults and 10.7% of high schoolers defined as obese. One of the main symptoms of the American obesity epidemic is poor nutrition. So why do Americans eat poorly? First,
…show more content…
There is such label confusion that one is not sure of what is inside. The confusing rules of what to write on a label is used to the company's’ advantage. One can state ¨fat free¨ on something as long as it has less than .5 grams of fat per serving in it. ´Sugarfree´ can be stated if there is less than 1 gram of sugar per serving. It does not mean that there is no fat or no sugar. Also note the print size on the label - challenging to read. Finally, the place where the label is printed is often at a seam or a fold or in some corrugated area of the