When talking about the word "epidemic" you always think of weird diseases, like the flu, SARS, and AIDS. Right now in America, there is an ongoing epidemic. It is caused not by viruses or bacteria, but by human nature. It's called obesity. There is no one way to solve this serious problem. We as a nation must work together to find ways to help cure this disease. Now I will talk about some of the things that I think we need to do about obesity in America. In Webster's Handy College Dictionary, obesity is defined as being, "very fat." That is simply what America is becoming. In fact, according to studies by the CDC, over 58 million American adults are overweight, with an additional 43 million classified as obese. This problem is not limited to grown-ups. Even us kids are getting fatter and fatter. Only 4 percent of children were overweight in 1982, while by 2001, that number had increased to an astonishing 25 percent for white youths, and 33 percent for blacks and Hispanics!
             This jump can be associated to two main factors: consuming too many calories, and a lack of exercise. As high-fructose corn syrups and other new sweeteners were introduced in the 1970's, there was an explosion of new varieties of snack foods and soft drinks, which also led to a great increase in consumption of junk food. This is very evident at school. For example, for lunch at Kennedy Middle School, some of our choices include pizza, burritos, and many different varieties of chips. There are almost no vegetable or fruit items available. That's not all. We can also get soda and junk food at vending machines after school. While most of you in the audience, me included probably eat these foods, if their consumption is not regulated, young people will start to think that it is okay and even healthful to eat junk food in large amounts.
             Another kind of food that has been eaten more and more by Americans is fast food. That'...