"Obesity in the United States" by Loic Manga

Obesity is one of the biggest issues in the United States society. Mostly people think that it is related to the lack and cheapness of fattening food. However, fattening food is one of the reasons, but there are others different reasons such as free time, parent’s education and other reasons that people do not talk about. Low-income-parents do not have time for themselves and they cannot afford to buy expensive healthy food. Some questions can be asked here such as: ‘’ is the United States the only place where people eat fattening food and why its population is so different from the rest of the world?” The only way we can avoid to be obese is to change our life style and behavior.

We all need free time to be able to take care of ourselves, and free time is missing in the United States society. A big portion of the United States population has two to three jobs; some of them are working and going to school. People like parents usually do not go to school but they spend their time off with their families or they go out for a dinner, eating fattening food again. Imagine how a parent, who wake up early in the morning to rush to work and come back only at night when children are sleeping, is going to spend his days off. They sometime stay two to three days without having a free time with their children. They do not even think about exercising on their days off all they care about is spending some time with their children. College students spend weekends doing their homework, partying and hanging out with friends. Everybody wants just to enjoy himself but social groups like low income families do not have time for their own. Most of them are always working and doing their best to improve their families’ way of living.

Low-income families do not really have the chance to choose their food. They just eat whatever they can afford to buy. They do not really care about the quality of the food but quantity. Somebody who makes $7.28 to $10 an hour with a family of five members will not be able to have access to healthy food, as he would like to. The United States is different from the rest of the world when it has come to talk about nutrition. In America, fatten and junk food are for low-income families and healthy food for wealthy families, while in others countries it is completely the opposite. In places like Africa, people think that if you are obese it is because you are feeding yourself well and that you are from a wealthy family. I have to say also that technology have an issue in this issue because most people in the United States walk less than a half mile a day. People use their cars to go anywhere they want to go, even if it is a couple blocks from their homes.

In some cases, we can say that children obesity is linking to parents’ behavior. Usually people are obese since they were little. I feel sometimes, as parents do not really care about their children health. A children is someone who does not care about his health, he will never get up one day and decide to jog around the neighborhood to burn some calories. Therefore, parents should help their children with it. I am talking about exercising but it is not something that you going to initiate in your life at an adult age. Parents should put it into their children life, sport is something that you practice since a young age. They need to get their children use to working out. They need to bring exercising in their families live, take it as a family hobby. Children spend hours and hours playing videos game and it cost a lot of money. Why not get your child a bike or a soccer ball. It is cheaper since you will not have to buy a new one every month or two months. Just get him something that he is going to work out and have fun with it.

The problem about parents’ reckless behavior remains principal. Many obese parents have obese children, and I ask myself, why give your children the same kind of food that has wrongly affected your life? Obesity is not only an American issue. If we look deeper, it is also a worldwide issue. However, why Asians are the skinniest and most fit people, is it because they eat less or because they are more athletic than the rest of the world? In fact it is because they meals are mostly constituted of vegetables. They practice a bunch of different martial arts, and it is transferred from parents to children. This is good way to keep your family healthy.