Obesity

In the Eight edition of America Now, chapter one covers the topic of widespread obesity in the United States. The author Robert Atwan said, “In the past ten Years, the percentage of Americans thirty pounds or more overweight has risen rapidly, and experts now wonder if we are facing an ‘obesity epidemic’” (Atwan 53). He presents several questions about the situation. Asking whether dieting is a solution, how contagious obesity is, and how serious is the epidemic, and what are the causes. In the book, three writers give their view and opinion of the situation.
In an early 2008 article, Shame on US. Hanna Lobel discusses her view on our society’s obsession on disapproving obesity, and tells us why doesn’t work. She begins by describing the negativity directed towards people who eat excessively, and how they have been considered disease ridden. In an example of our nation’s stigmatization, she says “To be fat in our culture is to be labeled not only a glutton, but also a vessel of disease” (Lobel 54) since obesity is associated with health problems. She acknowledges the population gained weight, however she doesn’t see it as huge problem. “…we’re not committing suicide by doughnuts” (55). Meaning that eating doughnuts don’t kill people in her view. She states the weight standards consider “66 percent of us as overweight is not only arbitrary, they’ve shifted: Some 31 million people became overweight in 1997 when the top end of the body mass index’s ‘overweight’ category was lowered from 27 to 25″ (55). With this lower standard made in 1997, and what she considers 66 percent a random figure, she belives the obesity epidemic “over stated” and calls self-willed weight loss “science fiction,” since people need to drastically change their lifestyle.
Lobel says there are two forms of obesity, one she considers the “good fatties” who’ve been “dealt with a band hand by genetics”; people who can’t help being overweight since their genes are the cause, not their eating... [continues]

Read full essay