The Chief Causes Of Obesity - 1110 Words

The Chief Causes of Obesity As we all know the obesity has become a great problem for many people around the world. A research shows that 34.9% of adults in the United States are obese, and the money used for health problems relating to obesity has greatly increased. The estimated cost was $147 billion in 2008, and the cost for obese people were $1,429 higher than normal people (cdc.gov). There are a lot of factors which makes many Americans obese. The chief causes of obesity are bad food choices and the reliance on the industrial food chain, and the government, the food companies and people are responsible for it. The main reason people started making bad food choices because they do not know the information of the food they eat. Most†¦show more content†¦If there is no healthy food in those places, people have no choice but to eat what is available. In his article, Zinczenko says â€Å"Lunch and dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kent ucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut† (391). He also emphasizes that he weighed 212 pounds by age 15 (392). There is little food choice for parents who’re working and also â€Å"latchkey† kids who are left at homes, so they started eating fast food which is convenient and easily accessible. Therefore, eventually they become the victims of obesity. In addition to people making bad food choices, there are food industries which care only about their profit but not peoples’ health. Most of the obese people are from the poor community. They eat fast food because it is so cheap and it also contain a lot of energy rich ingredients. As a result, they become obese with the increase cost in health care. In â€Å"The Omnivore’s Dilemma†, Michael Pollan explains that from the beginning of the industrial food chain to the end, â€Å"It’s All Corn† (10). Corn is involved in production animal feed, HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), processed food an d even fuel (45). Therefore, big companies invented genetically modified corn seeds to ensure producing the best yield of corn every season and sell it to farmers, and farmers started growing corn instead of healthy