Obesity in USA

Obesity in USA

Introduction

In today's developed world, Obesity has materialized as the major nutritional problem. This problem has over emerged over a short span of time and in United States itself, it began late twentieth century. The outbreak in children came around soon after. Data from surveys has shown that in United States the percentage of adults who are overweight is two thirds of their total population and the percentage of obese are one-third (Flegal et.al, 2002).

For those children who are still growing the definition of obesity is a bit more complicated as they are still growing in weight and height at a varying rate. BMI has been adopted for measuring adiposity in children as well as adults though there is no universal standard agreed upon for assessing those who are either obese or overweight (Barlow & Dietz, 1998).

Discussion

In United States, the standard used for measuring individuals who are overweight and obese is the reversed growth reference known as CDC. Obesity is a health problem of significance with implications concerning health, economy and social life. According to research, it has been, estimated that on average one third of adults and one fifth of adolescents and children will be obese in the next 3 years unless extreme measures are taken (Barness, et.al, 2007).

Cigarette smoking was the main preventable reason for mortality and obesity is fast replacing that. Adjustable physical activities and diet patterns are in association with mortality and morbidity, making it to national priority in regards with health of to improve the eating behavior within all population including adults, adolescents and children. For the youngsters experts have suggested 60 minutes of physical activity whether moderate or vigorous everyday, while only 30 percent of the young are actually meeting this target. Television watching, video games and computers are ...