Obesity: Epidemic or Excuse?
Obesity: Epidemic or Excuse? Dr. Meir Stampfer, of the Harvard School of Public Health, once said "It's a bitter truth toswallow: About every fourth person on Earth is too fat. Obesity is fast becoming one of theworld's leading reasons why people die." Most people would agree with this statement. Today,almost everybody needs a reason for why they are sick or have a medical problem. So, theeasiest thing to blame it on is a physical attribute that people have deemed unhealthy. In oursociety, excess weight often takes the fall for problems that it may not be responsible for. Jeffrey P. Koplan and William H. Dietz, the authors of "Caloric Imbalance and PublicHealth Policy," are two advocates of the story that obesity is an epidemic that leads to diseaseand death. In their article, they point out several statistics that state that society is getting fatterand that overweight people are more prone to certain ailments. Koplan and Dietz then use thesestatistics to push their campaign for a national comprehensive obesity prevention program thatincorporates educational, behavioral, and environmental components. In Koplan and Dietz's article, they state that more than 50% of US adults are now
First,they are basing overweight off of the BMI. The love-handle police, Koplan and Dietz, insist on this ridiculous BMI standard. There is a chance that the milk might go bad. These are the figures they use to prove our so-called obesity epidemic; however,it is more like an epidemic of bad statistics. We go to the doctor to treat the ailments that Koplan andDietz associate with obesity. Their last suggestion is to createmore community recreation areas, such as parks, playgrounds, and outdoor swimming pools. The problem with improving the location and appearance of stairwells is thatmost people would only use them if there was no elevator in the building; however, places likemalls have already improved the location and appearance of stairwells. These figures are seriously flawed from the start. Their second suggestion is to replace the short automobile trips, like to andfrom the store, with walking or bicycling. A BMI of 30 or moremakes you "obese"; at 5-foot-7 and 201 pounds, Tom Cruise's magic number is 31. Lets say someone walks to thegrocery store, buys some groceries, such as milk and cereal, walks back home during the middleof the summer. Koplan and Dietz then bring the national health care budget to the table to help their case. They say a recent estimate suggests that the direct and indirect costs of obesity in the UnitedStates approximated 10% of the national health care budget underscores why the nation can nolonger afford to ignore obesity as an epidemic.
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