English Essay

Introduction

For the last decades, obesity in U.S has increased tremendously into a major epidemic. According to the NHANES statistics, over two-thirds of adults are overweight and one third of this are now suffering from obesity. Children as well are affected by the epidemic. Over the last 3 decades, the growth in obesity has doubled in the children aged between 2 to 5, and it has tripled for the teenagers aged between 6 and 11. In this essay, I will provide an overview from the research on how the epidemic is going to affect the economy of the country. Several researches that have been conducted have pointed towards four main categories of economic impacts resulting from the obesity. The categories are productivity, cost of medication, human capital cost and transportation. The essay reviews the current evidence on every set of costs in turn and analyzes the significant gaps for future research on the impacts of obesity.

Paragraph 1

Statistics from NHANES shows that many American citizens have a problem with physical health since it lowers the life expectancy, leads to diabetes problems, and reduce participation in sports. First, the citizens who are suffering from physical health problem are likely to be affected by several diseases and they will not enjoy their living because of their health status. Richard M. Sueman notes that life expectancy in U.S is less than the life expectancy of other developed countries because other developed nations have less people who are suffering from obesity. Secondly, the problem resulting from obesity is that, citizens suffering from the epidemic will not enjoy their lives since they cannot take part in sports activities; this is due to their overweight. Overweight affects human movement, flexibility and body balance. The third problem resulting from obesity epidemic is that the affected people have high chances of being affected by other diseases. According to the research conducted by NHLBI and published in their website, nearly 13% of adults who had obesity in their childhood are affected by diabetes; the research was conducted between 2005 and 2006. The physical health problems in many occasions result in diseases such as obesity. Obesity is a health epidemic in U.S and it affects the life expectancy, and victims of this problem are likely to get other diseases such as obesity.

Paragraph 2

The second main problem resulting from obesity is mental problem. The victims normally feel uncomfortable with their bodies’ sizes and they feel ashamed about themselves. An example is one of my friends who is a student, she always avoid talking to other students and she once told me that she is ashamed of being in company to other students because of obesity. The big body is what is making her ashamed; she feels that the other student doesn’t like her shape. She is always nervous and she doesn’t know what to do in order to lose weight. This has greatly affected his psychology. The next thing is that obese people can easily think negative about themselves. This normally results from their lack of self-confidence. They always think about negative things about themselves, they always feel bad about their lives and in many occasions they give up in whatever they are doing and these always result in mental problems.