I have decided to switch my final paper topic to not just about the effects of television on obesity, but the fact that we just have way too much obesity period in the United States. The United States is considered to be on of the "fattest" coutries in the world. This is due to the fact that we eat way too many fatty foods, such as fast foods, and because of the decrese of some physical education classes in some schools and just Americans lack of exercise. Obesity is now considered to be the "fastest growing case of illness and death in the United State" says U.S. Sergeon General Richard Carmona. Obesity can be associated with nearly 300,000 deaths a year and over 117 billion dollars a year in healthcare expenses and on top of that we spend nearly 34 billion dollars a year on diet pills and supplements. 2 out of every 3 Americans are obese and want to do something about it. 44 million Americans are considered, medically, to be obese. This is a 74% increase since 1991. The poor and less educated people are considered to be the ones that are the most overweight and the ones with the largest of all the people that are overweight.
Television can be considered to be one of the main causes of not just children being obese, but also adults. When you don’t have anything to do on the weekends or even during the evening hours, what do most people do? Odds are they sit down in their favorite easy chair and start clicking away at the remote trying to find something to watch on the television instead of doing something active or productive with their time. Something should be done about this because not only is the fact that some people feel bad about themselves being overweight, but it is also unhealthy and leads to many types of diseases and health problems.
The problem that is trying to be solved here is the fact that television is causing more and more people to become lazy and obese. There is nothing that can be done by any outside source to stop the spread of the television epidemic, the solution has to come from within the person. They have to want to stop watching television i
s[n] excess. By getting people to grasp the concept of what is happening to them from watching too much television and getting them to realize the harmful effects of it should be enough to motivate them to stop. An alternative to television watching is to become involved in classes at a local health club or at a YMCA in the evenings. People could get a group of their friends and co-workers and go to the health clubs and work out together to make it more enjoyable for everyone. If everyone could do this, then we would see drastic results immediately. Also, more and more people would be more content with themselves and just feel better about their appearance. I will also elaborate on the fact that Americans dont exercise nearly enough and show some statistics on some of the research that has been done in this area.
http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/Men_NHANES_Prev.jpg∞
http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/Women_NHANES_Prev.jpg∞
With people being more physically fit they will feel more inclined to get out into the world and do all kinds of different activities. With more and more people doing this, soon instead of the television or some other non-active activity being done in the evening activity, people will be going out to health clubs or YMCA’s or even out in the neighborhoods just taking a walk and doing something more productive with their time than watching television. People will also continue to watch what they eat once they get down to a certain size that they were aiming for and strive to stay that size. I will show some research about how health clubs have affected Americans and how many Americans are actually a part of health clubs.
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Health clubs are shown to be rather ineffective, as must people who are members don't actually use them. I think you need to find something a little more interesting to say about this topic: saying that people are fat and need more exercise is not a very interesting argument. I want you to think more about coming up with novel approaches to getting people out of the house and into a more active life. Try to think beyond government regulation and information access. What else could you say about this topic?]
Works Cited
American Obesity Association. 2002. November 12, 2005.
http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/obesity_US.shtml∞
Greenblatt, Alan. January 31, 2003. November 12, 2005.
http://library2.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/search.php?fulltext=television+and+obesity&action=newsearch∞ (the first article entitled Obesity Epidemic)
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=b6a2c4fb4cd21762bda31797eea547e9&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVA&_md5=4783b35a3942d0fb069b25e65d2ff57e∞ ( this article would not come up again so I could not get the author or anything, so if anyone can get this to come up, please let me know)
PROPOSAL VERY ROUGH DRAFT
Television can be considered to be one of the main causes of not just children being obese, but also adults. When you don’t have anything to do on the weekends or even during the evening hours, what do most people do? Odds are they sit down in their favorite easy chair and start clicking away at the remote trying to find something to watch on the television instead of doing something active or productive with their time. Something should be done about this because not only is the fact that some people feel bad about themselves being overweight, but it is also unhealthy and leads to many types of diseases and health problems.
The problem that is trying to be solved here is the fact that television is causing more and more people to become lazy and obese. There is nothing that can be done by any outside source to stop the spread of the television epidemic, the solution has to come from within the person. They have to want to stop watching television is excess. By getting people to grasp the concept of what is happening to them from watching too much television and getting them to realize the harmful effects of it should be enough to motivate them to stop. An alternative to television watching is to become involved in classes at a local health club or at a YMCA in the evenings. People could get a group of their friends and co-workers and go to the health clubs and work out together to make it more enjoyable for everyone. If everyone could do this, then we would see drastic results immediately. Also, more and more people would be more content with themselves and just feel better about their appearance.
While this will not change the world, it will help people gain confidence and feel more motivated to go out into the world and do things that they didn’t think that they could. With more and more people doing this, soon instead of the television being the evening activity, people will be going out to health clubs or YMCA’s or even out in the neighborhoods just taking a walk and doing something more productive with their time than watching television.
