No More Couch Potatoes

Obesity is a major problem in the western World, particularly in the USA. It is an global epidemic and many people dies of it every year. More than 60% of the population in the USA has big problems with their weight. They are either overweight or obese, but why? The answer is simple. They eat to much unhealthy food and they are not exercising enough. It sounds easy to solve, but it is not that simple. Every where they go, they have access to McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and so on. Fast food restaurants are on each corner and the amercians visit them like never before. Each day 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant. It is a alarming high number, because it affects their health in many ways. If they continue with their bad habits the entire population will soon get heart diseases, diabetes, breathlessness, asthma, impaired fertility and that is only a few mentioned diseases.

For about 35 years we only spent 3 billion on fast food every year. It is nothing compared to today. Today we spend, more than 110 billion on fast food every year. It is a major increase, but the big question is: Why do we eat more fast food now than we did before? My personally opinion is, that I think people have a more busy life, they are working more and the womens work more now than they did before. Before they had the time to stay home and cook a healthy nourishing meal, they haven’t now. They choose the easy way, and that is to buy a quick meal at a fast food restaurant. I also think it have something to do with the children. Through commercials and advertising McDonald’s are able to catch their attention. A source tells that the most children can regonize McDonald’s before they can speak. We also saw that in the film Super Size Me where Morgan Spurlock the filmmaker showed some children pictures of the different people. The children couldn’t regonize the picture of Jesus but they all regonized Ronald McDonald. The big problem with obesity is very hard to solve if the children grow up with McDonald’s as a part of their everyday life. They have to learn about healthy living and if the parents can’t handle it, which it don’t seems like, may the school help them. And that is where one of the big problem comes, the schools can’t handle it either. We saw in the film Super Size Me, what kind of food the schools served in the canteen. It is chips, cookies, fizzy drinks and so on. This kind of food is not helping the children at all. The food makes them out of sorts, more tired and they can’t receive the teaching the teachers give them. What they need is knowledge about heathy living.