Obesity In American Culture

Obesity is defined as the condition of being grossly fat or overweight; in other words obesity refers to your body weight, if you weight is higher than the average body weight for your specific body layout, you can be considered obese or overweight. People would link obesity to culture; the typical diet of where you are from, including the physical characteristics based on heredity, and the point of view on obesity. However, nowadays there’s another argument for obesity in economic terms, primarily being the rise of fast food. I do not have first hand experience in obesity. Rather, I have been an average weight person for as long I can remember. However, I have a perspective from both sides being the reasons for obesity, culture or economy. …show more content…
We nurture our wealth, because our culture has always told us to do so. But health was always on its own. We tended to illness and injury of course, but there was nothing to do for health when it wasn't broken” (Katz 18-19). In this way, Katz suggest that any information regarding nurturing our health that we learn from our culture, family, is slim to none. The lack of knowledge of nutrition helps obesity thrive. As well as putting it wealth in the same cultural treatment that we have for our health. “Imagine if we treated wealth the way we treat health. We would not invest, or save, or budget. We would ignore our financial status until it was broken, and then in panic, take desperate measures—like crime, perhaps. I'm not quite sure what financial recovery method is comparable to coronary bypass, or bariatric surgery, or dialysis, but whatever it is, it would be neither pretty nor painless” (Katz 20). We are raised culturally aware of our wealth and its importance; all we need to do is adjust the importance of health in our culture. I agree with the necessary inclusion of health into our culture. General information about our health is lacking within culture. There’s no perception of importance for our health in culture. Katz expresses his idea to inject health into our culture, similarly to wealth, and watch how the awareness …show more content…
Not in favor of either one but recognizing the importance of both the culture and economic effect of obesity. Nevertheless, I am swayed to lean in favor to the economic standing based on the changes in the world as of late. If I look at the world since I was born, it has change quite drastically. Acquiring the knowledge about how much of a monetary impact fast food has on a food consumption budget, in comparison to the previous estimate, influenced my judgement. Ultimately, I think the bigger issue we need to take care of is the economic impact. Affordable fast food has been the biggest impact on obesity. Simply because anyone is able to afford this food without batting an eye. One-tenth spending does not even affect most low-income households. Similarly, our society is of a daily consumer. We fancy the fast paced and high calorie intake fast food provides for us. At the same time, a number of the population isn’t affected by fast food; they do not become obese from their consumption. The probability of becoming obesity from fast food may be higher than all others but it is not the only reason behind it. I will need to take on further research to develop a conclusive answer to this matter; the current variables, such as culture, still cause obesity. Once all variables are put into account, then we will be able to formulate the necessary steps to take against