Our Obeses EnvironmentEssay title: Our Obeses EnvironmentOur Obese EnvironmentRecently over the past few years, much has been reported about childhood and youth obesity. Contemporary articles in the American Medical Association reported that 15% of 5-19 year olds, which is estimated at 9,000,000 in the United States, are overweight, and the amount of childhood obesity has raised attention regarding both the psychological and physical health of our nation’s youth.
How did this happen? The National Institute of Diabetes, & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDD), National Institutes of Health, documented that children become overweight for the same reasons grown ups do by burning less energy than they are consuming through their food. Even though genetics does play a key factor in obesity, it does not account for all the rise our nation has seen in children and youth who are obese or overweight. This rise goes across all ages and racial groups in the U.S. (NIDDK, 1998). Socioeconomic status is the most important key factor when dealing with obesity. Children of all races who are of low socioeconomic status are approximately 70% more likely to be obese when compared to those of a socioeconomic status.
I have never personally been an obese person, but in all the literature I have read that suggests that obese people tend to have lower body weight. For the most part, people who are obese show a greater tendency than people of normal bodyweight to be obese (Rothman, 2011b). Obesity can be understood as a metabolic disorder, or both, that has an impact on blood sugar or insulin levels. Obesity affects all individuals with an over weight (obese people), which in turn affects many individuals, although no one group is completely independent of obesity (Doddsen et al., 2014). The relationship between BMI and the body’s ability to maintain lean mass is not known in other laboratory animals (Doddsen et al., 2014), but these results are particularly relevant. Obesity and diabetes are extremely different diseases. Obese people are obese. Diabetes has a longer life span, has a higher metabolic rate, and tends to have lower blood fat, and has only a higher incidence than the typical human disease. The main metabolic pathway, which is the glucose uptake of glucose out of the body, has been reduced in obese people by almost every known mechanism such as by fasting glucose and insulin, and a decrease in the risk of both obesity and diabetes by decreasing the levels of some of the metabolites associated with energy metabolism and energy metabolism. Obesity and diabetes both take several forms. An increase in body weight leads to a sudden rise in the body’s metabolism of fats, which is one of the most interesting physiological processes. When leptin is suppressed, the body loses much of its energy stored there. With some people, an overall increase of fat-cell density is associated with an increase of body weight. And with leptin, this decrease with increased body weight is accompanied by an increase in adiposity. The increase in body weight is accompanied by a decrease in many other aspects of the body. There is always an increased likelihood that an individual will be overweight at some point in time and that the person’s BMI will increase. So it is critical to understand why the body, which is not obese, does not have this increased ability to maintain low fat or lean mass. Obesity may occur due to insulin secretion. But it can also occur due to the development of obesity as a result of the metabolism of glucose, protein, and carbohydrate. This process, called insulin release, is involved in creating insulin-bound molecules that make changes to the bloodstream. It takes place when an individual’s glucose levels are too high and the body tries to decrease and/or overproduce their own glucose. But even in people of normal weight with normal body weights, the bodies of obese people do have a lot more insulin output. Therefore, the production of insulin can become more rapid and more responsive to changes in insulin levels. This insulin is often converted to energy as triglycerides, or triglycerides (TGs), are converted into glucose. It is not the process itself that is responsible for all obesity and diabetes but it can
As stated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), several environmental factors have contributed to increasing numbers of obesity among youth, including frequently more time spent in sedentary activities such as playing video games and watching T.V., and the accessibility of fast foods and the very harmful supersizing of fast foods that points to diets high in sugar and fat. And guess who suffers most from these dilemmas, children in poverty. Children in poverty are less likely able to have the opportunity to engage in physical activities because of the lack of resources needed to do them. Parents are unable to provide the necessary tools or environment for their child to participate in any sports. So this would be a case of “insular poverty” according to Galbraith. Youth leagues that use to be affordable to the vast public for a small price are being replaced by expensive leagues that not only require a pricy membership fee to join but also require additional equipment to play sports which use to be provided by the league. To meet family’s ends mean, parents of low socioeconomic status must work outside the home and work tedious long hours. This causes them to have no time to prepare healthy meals at home for their children, resulting in frequent visits to the fast food drive-through on their way home from work. (Reported by the American Heart Disease Association)
So what must we due to stop this ever growing epidemic in the United States, we must go to the route of the problem as stated above. For childhood obesity stems from “insular poverty.” Children in poverty live in environments that can only lead to obesity so we must adapt to a new policy to what many researchers are no regarding as “urban sprawl.” Urban sprawl is distinguished by housing developments that are built outside of city centers in distinct and rural areas, most frequently off highways, where citizens must drive to get to school, work, or shop. Also know as “smart growth” this campaign supports building neighborhoods with sidewalks and bike lanes in closer proximity to schools, shopping and workplaces. These types of neighborhoods will naturally encourage a more active lifestyle. By passing a bill that requires all new housing developments to use the campaign of “urban sprawl” we will see a dramatic decrease in childhood obesity. This bill will also require that all people of socioeconomic class to be of high priority when purchasing new homes or apartments. The government will provide financial assistant to those wishing to accommodate these places. This can be in the form of direct low interest loans, or the government directly lowering the price of these neighborhoods to the low socioeconomic families and the government pay the difference. Where will the government get the money to pay for this? The government can provide financial incentives to the land developers in the form tax rebates if they lower their prices to families of low social economic status. But wouldn’t this create another system of stratification to those of high above social economical status; the answer to this is no since latest statistics, according the American Housing Contract Association, show that 80% of families the United States considered as middle-class already live in neighborhoods that are considered to be urban sprawl neighborhoods, compared to the %10 of low social economic that live in the neighborhoods. How can this be realistic, how can we provide enough urban sprawl neighborhoods for the vast low social economical class in America. Well this is realistic since the real-estate economy is at a recession. There are plenty of urban sprawl neighborhoods where homes are unoccupied due to the high price of the home.