Obesity in America

Maddie McMillan
Nutrition @ 1pm, Tue, Thurs.
3/22/15

Jennifer B. Marks of The American Diabetes Association said, Nearly two-thirds of

adult Americans are overweight or obese. (Marks, 2004). My question is how is it that we still
are gaining weight when we have so many tools we can use for effective weight loss? How is it
that obesity has more than quadrupled in adolescents over the last 30 years? (Ogden, Carroll,
2014). I believe that many factors correlate with the rapid increase in U.S. obesity. These
factors are fast foods and portion sizes, and income.
When it comes to fast food, the United States consumes a lot of it. The average
American consumes fast food 159 times each yeareach burger meal is about 1,200 calories
thats 190,000 calories. To burn that, you would need to run from New York City to Denver,
Colorado (FastfoodNutrition.org). To me, its not a huge surprise that we each consume that
much fast food. Fast food is EVERYWHERE we go. To show how prevalent fast food is in our
lives, I decided to count how many fast food (drive through) places are in Murray, the city I live
in. Through Google maps, I counted over 100 restaurants in Murray; thirty five of them were
fast food (Google, 2015). And restaurants have take-out too. I didnt count gas stations, food
courts in stores, or food carts. We have extra food waiting for us.
And they dont just wait for us to come. There are commercials and ads,
everywhere. Richard Feloni, from Business Insider, wrote an article on this. He said that
American kids see over a thousand fast food ads a year460 of those ads are McDonalds
alone, who has more than twice the ads being seen as other fast food restaurants (Feloni, 2013).

If there were 1,100 commercials seen by kids each year, thats around 3 a day. What scares me is
this is the average kid. Some kids see much more than 3 fast food commercials a day.
And even more than that, McDonalds specifically has been targeting kids in their ads
for years. We have elevated our partnership with the NFL this year...The NFL Rush Zone allows
our youngest consumers to get in on the action (Feloni, 2013). If kids are taught to eat fast
food at a young age, they will continue to consume it for the rest of their lives. We have grown
up hearing the jingles, listening to the catchy sayings, and eating the easy-to-get food. How
could we do anything different?
And its not just the commercials that are used to get to us. There is a psychology behind
fast food as well. Heres my question: How many fast food restaurants do you know of that
dont have red in their logo? There are few. And why? Because red is the most dominant color
in fast food logos red stimulates appetite and express the speed at which you will be served
your meal (the real fast in fast food) ('This article appears courtesy of Walter Graffhttp://www.waltergraff.com, 2014). Fast food is tempting. Psychologically and culturally.
Another issue with not just fast food, but all food places, is portion sizes. In 2002, the
American Society for Clinical Nutrition conducted research regarding portion sizes. For this
experiment, they had 51 people who were over-weight or average weight, ages 21-30, male and
female participate. Other members were not included when they didnt like the food served,
were ill, or had scheduling conflicts. The 51 people were broken up into two groups. One group
had smaller portions of food, the other had larger portions. Both were self-served. Each session,
each groups food portions increased. After the experiment, they discovered that 30% more
food was eaten when there was a larger portion for the participants (Rolls, Morris, Roe, 2002).

On the Divinecaroline website, some portion stats were shared:

Over the past few decades, portion sizes of everything from muffins to sandwiches have
grown considerably. Unfortunately, Americas waistbands have reacted accordingly. In
the 1970s, around 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; now 66 percent of
us are. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our
population to 30 percent. While increased sizes havent been the sole contributor to our
obesity epidemic, large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a
typical meal is supposed to look like. These portion comparisons, adapted from the
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes (NHLBI) Portion Distortion Quiz (2003),
give a visual representation of what sizes used to be compared to what they are today.
Portions and foods
Two slices of pizza
Cup of Coffee
Movie Popcorn
Plain Bagel

Twenty years ago

500 calories
45 calories
5 cups-270 calories
3 in. diameter-140 calories

Today
850 calories
330 calories
Tub-630 calories
5-6 in. diameter-350 calories

Portions are getting bigger. And fast food is growing. And who can blame the fast food
industry when the average American spends more than $1,200 on fast food every year?
(Reporter, 2014).
Another factor that affects obesity is income. Wealth distribution is extremely uneven in
the U.S.; the top 20% of Americans own 85% of the U.S. wealth (Domhoff, 2005). When a
banana costs sixty-nine cents at the grocery store and a burger costs ninety-nine cents, it is
difficult for family to choose healthy food, because they cannot afford it.

While fast food is everywhere, it is ultimately our choice as individuals to consume it, or
not to consume it. In the world today, we have weight loss supplements, lots of healthy food
options, and gyms. There are tons of ways In which we can be, and live healthier.
If I were to suggest a weight-loss program for an over-weight or obese individual, then I
would recommend small steps. By this, I mean to do the diet that works best with our
lifestylea diet that we can stick with long term. (Zelman, 2014). We cant do extremes of
anything. We need to do what works for us. For some people, it might be the intense, low-carb.,
low fat diets. For most people though, at least in my opinion, it is the moderate, slow, consistent
diets.
Most of all, we need to rely on each other. The best thing to do is to do whatever weight
loss thing you want to do with someone you are close to. I believe that obesity in the United
States would be significantly lower if we didnt try to: lose all of our weight at one time, and
tried to lose the weight without a proper support system. If we were more patient with ourselves,
we would be a lot more successful, and a lot healthier.

References

Domhoff, William. Who Rules America? Power in America, September, 2005,

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Feloni, Richard. Heres How Many Fast Foods Ads American Kids See Each Year Business
Insider, November 15, 2013, http://www.businessinsider.com/american-children-see-253mcdonalds-ads-every-year-2013-11
Graff, Walter. 2014. Color or Color, 2014, 'This article appears courtesy of Walter Graffhttp://www.waltergraff.com' http://www.bluesky-web.com/color.htm
http://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/22/1/1.full
http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
http://www.fastfoodnutrition.org/blog/7_b-how-much-fast-food-do-you-eat-a-year.html
http://www.statista.com/statistics/244616/number-of-qsr-fsr-chain-independent-restaurants-inthe-us/
http://www.takepart.com/photos/food-inc-facts/growth-factory-farming
http://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=restaurants&find_loc=Murray%2C+Salt+Lake+City
%2C+UT#find_desc&start=340
Monte, Liz. Portion Size: Then vs. Now. Divine Caroline, 2013,
http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/portion-size-then-vs-now
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes (NHLBI) Portion Distortion Quiz

Reporter, Daily Mail. Average American Spends $1,200 a year on fast food,Daily Mail, May
1, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2617493/Average-American-spends-1200-year-fast-food.html
Rolls, Barbara J, Morris, Erin L., Roe, Liane S., Portion Size of Food Effects Energy Intake,
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 2002,
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/6/1207.long
Zelman, Cathleen M., 7 Things Never to Do th Lose Weight, WebMD, April 5, 2014,
http://www.webmd.com/diet/lose-weight-dangers?page=1