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Cristian Miramontes
Professor Altman
English 113A
December 6, 2015
Why Is Obesity An Issue?
An astounding amount of issues today cause varying types of controversy -ranging from
legalizing same sex marriage to determining whether the second amendment should be modified
or removed for good. However, one issue that has been slowly causing more controversy is
obesity. Obesity is a rising dispute because people are approaching different ways of taking
action towards it, many disagree on whether obesity is a choice, and numerous people are
questioning the accuracy of measuring obesity rates today.
Everyone has a different method on how obesity should be handled. Some believe that
the government should carry responsibility and take action to reduce obesity rates. In the article,
What You Eat Is Your Business, by Radley Balko, he states that, Sen. Joe Lieberman and
Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, among others, have called for a fat tax on high-calorie foods and
congress is now considering menu-labeling legislation, which would force restaurants to send
every menu item to the laboratory for nutritional testing. Though some people are trying to
manage what they eat to prevent obesity others are going all out and putting a tax on every highcalorie foods to stop obesity. People believe that it is the U.S government's problem to fix obesity
since it is occurring due to all the fast foods that are in America. While others claim that the
consumer should take responsibility for being obese. In Radley Balkos article he also states, If
policymakers want to fight obesity, theyll halt the creeping socialization of medicine, and move
to return individual Americans ownership of their own health and well-being back to individual

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Americans. Rather than trying to blame fast food restaurants for raising the number of obese
people, we need to take responsibility for our actions and choices. We as human beings have the
knowledge and sense of what we want to eat and how it will affect us in the end.
Most schools that receive federal money have to follow certain food and health
regulations in order to continue being funded. Under these guidelines, the school creates a health
program that students abide by at a young age, following them throughout their life. While
attending these public schools, students gain healthier eating habits and eat more nutritious foods
that help prevent obesity from occurring. Not only do schools offer these lunch programs, but
there are also many clubs that help keep students active and involved. Including students in these
regular eating habits will help them keep a fast metabolism and create a healthy pattern for
children to continue through their adult lives. Preventing obesity starts with the parents teaching
their kids nutritious habits at home and keeping those habits in the childs environment.
Therefore, we shouldnt be blaming our own problems on our government because we decided to
eat fast food rather than a home-cooked meal, where you have healthier options.
Obesity is thought to be a disease rather than a choice. We are well aware of what we
crave and what we want to eat, but we end up choosing the more delicious choice. In the
article, Junking Junk Food by Judith Warner, she states, There has been no concerted parallel
attempt to create a more pointed and sophisticated approaches to changing how Americans think
and feel about food. So we ended up a wealth of knowledge about best nutritional practices, but
no cultural change to back it up. Warner shows how we are always taught what health was in
school during lunch and by our parents so we can end up making a healthy choice in what we eat
but it just stays in the mind as knowledge not an action. We know that a burger is unhealthy for
us because of all the fat and grease that the burger contains but we would rather eat a grease-

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filled burger than a healthy salad because it suits our taste buds better, we do not even take into
account the effect it has on our body. The sole reason why we prefer a burger, a pizza, or even a
hot dog over a salad or a sandwich is because the burger has more flavor, meaning that fast
food leaves a better taste in the mouth compared to its healthy alternative. We can choose the
healthy alternative and have a good taste in our mouths by proportioning the type of dressing,
seasoning, and condiments we decide to put on top.
Another thing that we could do is moderate how much fast food we eat and the amount of
exercise we do. In the article, Dont Blame the Eater by David Zinczenko, he writes, By the
age 15, I had packed 212 pounds with a lanky 5-foot-10 frame. Then I got lucky, I went to
college, joined the Navy Reserves, and got involved with a health magazine which taught me
how to manage my diet. But most of the teenagers who lived on a fast-food diet wont turn their
lives around. Yes, we could eat a burger every now and then, but we have to learn how to
manage our diets with the proper amount of proportions we should eat and the amount of
exercise we should do. Many people decide to eat fast food, but they choose not to do some sort
of exercise so they can burn the extra calories that they have gained because of the fast food they
had just eaten. If you just sit around and eat fast food every day of the week, gaining more and
more pounds, whos fault is it that you ended up with high blood pressure and obesity? In most
cases, there have been cases when obesity rates are inaccurately measured.
Numbers for obesity rates cant really be trusted since they are inaccurate. The scale that
the government uses to measure someones body mass can often claim someone to be
overweight/obese even though the person is healthy overall. In the article, Being fat is OK by
Paul Campos, he mentions, According to the federal government, Im overweight. Thats
because, even though I run 35 to 40 miles per week, and am in excellent overall health, my

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height of five feet, eight inches and weight of 165 pounds gives me a Body Mass Index figure
that makes me overweight, according to the Body Mass Index (BMI) charts. The way that the
government determines who is overweight is highly inaccurate and can not be relied on to give
estimates of who is obese or not. Hence, even though you can be in great shape and exercise
regularly, the governments way of determining whos obese or overweight will put you in the
overweight category because of your height and weight. This can be very misleading considering
it is not taken into consideration the key components that make up ones body besides fat tissue.
The government tries to place us all in one of the three categories: overweight,
underweight, or normal; the way they use to determine someones weight status is extremely
inaccurate and suggests these categories with rough distinctions that depend on a decimal point.
It does not take into account that muscle weighs more than mass, and it even ignores waist size.
There is no interpretation for the proportions of bone, muscle, and fat in the body, in which bone
and muscle are both denser than fat. In this case a strong-boned, broad-muscled athlete would
even be considered obese. BMI does not measure the multiple components that make up the
overall body composition and overall fails in precisely measuring body fat content. If the
government wants to determine someones weight status they have to take account of the
persons eating habits, weight proportions, height, the amount of exercise they do, and their
current health condition. This will provide a better measurement of whether or not the person is
overweight, thus making obesity rates more accurate.
Obesity is slowly becoming a huge controversy in the fact that everyone believes in an
array of ways that obesity should be handled. People also cant ultimately decide whos at fault
for the (imprecise) rising rates of obesity. Not to mention, that our own government is in
inaccurately measuring the rate of obesity just on someones height and weight. However, it can

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be agreed upon that if we dont find a solid way to prevent obesity from occurring, then its
results could be disastrous.

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Work Cited
Balko, Radley. "What You Eat Is Your Business." Editorial. CATO Institute. CATO Institute,
23 May 2004. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Campos, Paul. "Being Fat Is OK." Jewish World Review. Jewish World Review, 23 Apr. 2001.
Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Warner, Judith. "Junking Junk Food." The New York Times Magazine. The New York Times,
25 Nov. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Zinczenko, David. "Don't Blame the Eater." The New York Times Magazine. The New York
Times, 23 Nov. 2002. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.