Obesity Epidemic

As Baker Harrell mentioned in his guest lecture during class we live in a bubble here at UT when it comes to realizing the percentages of the obese across the country. I read in an article on Yahoo.com that college graduates are 14% less likely to be obese than high school grads. The article also mentions adults ages 25-34 with a college degree are nearly twice as likely to exercise regularly than those without a college degree. This explains a little why here on such an elite campus we are not quite exposed to such a serious problem the rest of the world faces. However, you do not have to go too far off of campus to witness overweight and obese people. Just yesterday when I was eating at Mr. Gatti's I noticed two families each with a child under the age of 9 who was apparently 30-40 pounds or more, overweight, eating at the "All-you-can-eat Buffet." It was a little upsetting, considering there are much healthier choices for overweight children than eating at the all you can eat, carbo-filled, Mr.Gatti's buffet. Both of these families were Hispanic, which is the ethnicity that Harrell claims has the highest percentage of obese and overweight youth. Baker Harrell seems to think the obesity problem is detrimental to the progress of our society and country and I completely agree. People who are overweight and obese have a greater number of health problems, and if these people are uneducated, and unable to get insured, they are using and borrowing tremendous amounts of money to fix a problem that can most times in the first place be avoided. We must demand a change claims Harrell. Several families do nothing about this, such as the families I saw at Mr. Gatti's. However it is a complicated problem to solve when considering today's families are working longer hours and are unable to cook meals every night and are often times resorting to sugary, extremely unhealthy fast foods. Along with the change of schedules, budgets also lead families to resort to fast food. At McDonald's a salad is around $5 or $6 whereas a burger and fries can each be ordered off of the dollar menu.
Harrell brings up a depressing fact in his article that this generation of youth is the first in 100 years to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Today's society contributes greatly to that statistic. Children play video games and play with technology much more as opposed to running around and playing outside until dinner time like their parents and grandparents did. Crime level's rising since "the good ole days" could also be to blame for the lack of children playing outdoor activities. I strongly feel technologies such as elevators, and other machines that have turned previous manual tasks into tasks that can be done with a simple push of the button are also small things that add up to not getting the exercise and movement our previous generations did. Harrell also mentions that other environmental changes such as schools offering more sodas, lower participation rates in Physical Education classes, and also a lower percentage of schools offering recess contribute to the rise in overweight children. Not only the school environment, but the home environment, as I had mentioned earlier, is partly to blame for the obesity problem. A significant increase in the "single parent home" is a statistic which in turn leads to producing overweight children. These children are much more likely to be obese than children who grow up in a two parent home. Mainly because of the amount of meals eaten away from the home, and the busy schedules of a single parent leading to not as much education and precaution to their children about their health. Lastly Harrell mentions the "Built Environment" which are the neighborhoods, roads, buildings, food sources, and recreational facilities in which people live, work, are educated, eat and play. He says in these built environments there have been changes such as, children no longer walking or biking to school. He also mentions that in these built environments there are less supermarkets, and more fast food options in minority and low-income neighborhoods. As I said earlier, Harrell says this health problem could be detrimental to the progress of our country, and that "as a society we must all commit to end the cancer of obesity if we are to save generations of young people from a life that will be less active, less socially satisfying, and significantly shorter."