As it has been well-known for quite some time, obesity is one of the most perturbing problems for western societies. In the United States this problem is particularly alarming. Appearances aside, obesity directly affects people’s health.
Lifestyles and eating habits are at the root of most problems with obesity in this and other countries where the percentage of obese individuals continues to grow. This is especially lamentable when the incidence of obesity in children and teenagers is examined. Unhealthy childhoods are condemning millions of boys and girls to fat adulthoods, with fatal consequences for their health.
Often, responsible political parties and public health authorities put aside this particular problem to focus on other issues. When we speak about education and values, obesity is too often marginalized despite the many problems it provokes, among others huge medical expenses resulting from obesity-related health problems.
The United States needs to seriously face this problem, with a firm education from childhood on in lifestyles and healthy habits encouraging citizens to exercise regularly and maintain a healthy and balanced diet based on the consumption of vegetables, fruits, and lean proteins. Part of being a responsible adult is taking care of one’s health.

According to government statistics, the index of obesity in the United States was stable for five years in the research period 2000-2008. Campaigns in favor of conscientious diets and healthy habits are without a doubt responsible for this stability. Even so, according to the most recent statistics, two thirds of adults and almost a third of children are overweight, with no notable improvement in this area.
The above data demonstrates that we are close to controlling obesity, but we haven’t gotten there yet. To reach this point, weight-control must be priority in America as well as all western societies. Although obesity isn’t a subject that captures newspaper headlines, or time on the evening news, it is a problem that directly affects people’s health and causes serious social consequences. Obesity is a problem that we can and should control. Statistics serve to show us the reality of the situation: 34 percent of all adults are obese, 17 percent of children are obese as well and 10 percent of babies are considered overweight.

The CDC’s statistics are derived from health surveys realized by the organization every two years, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. These statistics leave no room for doubt. The United States, the paradigm of advanced societies, is also the paradigm of the fattest societies. But weight, and obesity aren’t exclusively American problems. People in more and more countries seem unable to control their weight, a problem that is further complicated by access to low quality food, the adoption of sedentary lifestyles, and unhealthy eating habits. Eating out frequently tends to make a bad situation worse, because of excessive calories, large portion sizes and a general lack of knowledge about food consumed when eating in restaurants. The replacement of exercise and sports with stationary entertainment such as television and Internet also play a part in weight problems in developed countries.
The statistics published indicate that 60% of adults are excessively fat and have maintained the same weight during the last three realized surveys.
When statistics are categorized by race, African-Americans have higher indexes of obesity, followed by Hispanics and Caucasians. These differences are possibly influenced by factors like eating habits, and limited access to quality food, for example in school cafeterias or in homes where parents aren’t present because of work or other reasons. Here we clearly see the importance of parents’ presence. It is also important to note the importance of high calorie traditional cooking in African-American and Hispanic culture.

Among children between 2 and 19 years of age, 32 percent are overweight. The percent of overweight youth hasn’t varied much during recent years. What is especially troubling is the fact that the majority of obese children are extremely obese and the percentage of extremely obese children between 6 and 19 years of age has increased dramatically from 9% to 15% from 1999 to 2000. It’s very distressful to see that the number of obese children and young people is not going down, and actually seems to have grown in number. These statistics reflect current negative tendencies that could spell disaster for the health of future generations.
Sedentary lifestyles, soft drinks, videogames, TV, low quality food, junk food, deficient education in nutrition, lack of regular exercise, are some of the principal causes behind obesity that alert us to the necessity of continuing efforts to promote healthy life habits that prevent obesity.
Currently, this problem, so typical in advanced societies, extends among numerous countries and age ranges, in a way that more and more often we observe overweight children and the health problems that result, as well as a fatter adult population in general. The downside to this issue isn’t aesthetics but instead has to do with the health problems that obesity occasions in societies as well as the cost of public health, when it becomes the excess of weight becomes an epidemic.

Facing obesity must be given the attention and importance of any other issue in a society. In order to raise awareness and make a difference, all campaigns against obesity, whether funded by government or private initiative, must be taken in with enthusiasm and support. Campaigns that include healthy advice, fruit and vegetable based diets, physical education programs for children and adults, and the promotion of quality, organic and ecological shopping habits, particularly in low-income cities and neighborhoods as well as suburban areas with high acquisition, where high prices are too often erroneously equated with quality.
Obesity, this epidemic that affects modern societies, must be eradicated. The United States, with its immense capacity to lead and be an example must be a leader in the effort to end obesity, a problem that affects two out of every three people in the United States alone.
The United States spends more than 150,000 million dollars a year on obesity and its complications. Health problems like Type 2 Diabetes have been strongly linked to obesity and could affect one in three persons born in the year 2000 according to the Centers for the Control and Prevention of Illness, and Cardiac problems. Type 2 Diabetes provoked 4000,000 deaths in 2010, as well as additional endocrine and brain, and circulatory complications and other chronic illnesses. This expense has doubled since 1998 and surpasses expenses for cancer, which reflects the serious nature of this epidemic

“Stroke”, magazine by the American Heart Association, links obesity with a higher probability of suffering a stroke or a brain hemorrhage.
Obesity presents an extraordinary challenge for all of us and we need answers, not only from the government, but also from private citizens, businesses and communities. Only with the active involvement of private and personal initiative will we be able to resolve this problem.
We will achieve nothing if fathers and mothers who should take responsibility for maintaining their children at an adequate weight don’t do anything about it or consent to unhealthy eating and exercise habits. Likewise if these adults, who must take care of their own health and weight aren’t conscience of their own habits, their negative example will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
This problem, that sometimes is seen as exclusively American, is in reality, an international issue. Currently, there are 1,000 million obese persons worldwide. For the year 2015, it’s estimated that around 1,500 million adults worldwide will be overweight. This bloated figure represents an elevated 25 percent of world population. Thus all of us are candidates for “getting fat.” Weight and tobacco related health problems, are linked to over 18 million deaths per year.

We have a weapon of mass destruction in our opulent societies, but it seems like nobody is becoming aware of it. While obesity continues to grow in the world, affecting men and women equally, what really brings the point home are the number of deaths as a result of cardiac illnesses. Numbers that haven’t changed during the last four decades, according to the World Health Organization. According to their calculations, around 200,000 lives could be saved by eliminating risk factors that affect the heart, among them obesity and tobacco use. According to recent scientific studies, tobacco use also increases the risk of suffering from long term weight problems.
Since the 90s, obesity related deaths have slowed down significantly, as alarming increases in diabetes and high blood pressure among women are experienced as a result of growing obesity.
As if all of this wasn’t enough to consider obesity a very important problem and consider serious measures, we must also face the clear relationship between obesity and cancer according to studies published in the scientific magazine “Cell”, that confirms that being overweight promotes the growth of tumors. Excess pounds elevate the risk of cancer in general and in particular cancer of the liver, an area where the level of danger for the patient is multiplied almost by five. According to “Cell”, in the United States alone, obesity could be behind 90,000 deaths a year from cancer.

Because of the enormous seriousness of this problem, we also can cite information proceeding from a country like Spain, where traditionally the Mediterranean diet has maintained obesity at bay. Even so, in the last 20 years, child obesity has tripled and has affected 14 percent of the general population and 17 percent of adults, according to the Biomedical Research Network Center for the study of Obesity and Nutrition. Parents are directly responsible for their children’s weight when they permit unhealthy habits and relax rules. In socialist societies, weight will continue to be a problem as individuals forget their responsibilities and depend heavily upon the state to take care of them. Also, cases of morbid obesity are increasing in an alarming way, affecting one in four obese citizens. In Spain, the affected population of Type 2 diabetes, with high levels of glucose, is situated between 6 and 12 percent, 18 percent in populations 65 and older and more than 20 percent among individuals 75 and older. As the University Hospital of Salamanca has recently concluded, this population affected by diabetes produced by obesity has a reduced life expectancy of 8 years.

At the same time, the costs associated with obesity in Spain exceed 2.5 million euros yearly, an expense that further saturates the already saturated and overflowing Spanish Health system.
Obesity, this silent epidemic, reaches a high social and economic cost that we can’t hide, assume or forget. A moderately obese individual lives about three years less than a healthy person, and a morbidly obese person 10 years less. As far medical expenses, an obese person is 36% more expensive to take care of than a person who isn’t obese. According to a study conducted by the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity the expenses provoked by this illness exceeds 2,500 million euros each year. In the United States, obesity costs the health-care system 61,000 million euros, almost 10% of the total cost of medical attention in the country.
Now is the time to face the urgent problem of obesity, that in American alone affects 75 million people and has converted Spain in a leaders in child obesity; a sad leadership.
The education of children and adults is at the root of this problem as life values and healthy habits are being lost in favor of lifestyles that neglect and negatively affect citizens’ health. The modern commodities that often pave the path to obesity, and must be avoided or at least limited if we are to protect the good health of future generations.
If modern parents don’t learn to prepare healthy snacks and meals for their children instead of stuffing them with sugars and transfats, obesity will continue to grow in size, causing illnesses, medical expenses and killing millions of people around the world.