Land of the Free and Home of the Fat.
Our nation possesses a serious disorder that is infecting people of all ages and knows no limits based on income or ethnical background. It causes children to have biochemical or clinical cardiovascular risk factors such as hyperlipidemia, elevated blood pressure, and increased insulin levels. It triggers high blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, gallbladder disease, and osteoarthritis in adults (Must). Surpassed only by smoking in terms of total mortality rates, obesity is plaguing our nation as one of the most deadliest diseases a citizen can possess (Allison). The culprit of this ailment is not the citizens themselves, but the society controlling these people. The "American Way" of living causes its people to be fat.
One definition of the word fat, as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary, is "the best or richest part: "living off the fat of the land"". The American population has exploited this definition of the word fat, and has surpassed the healthy limit of "living off the fat of the land", causing the majority of Americans to become obese. Funk and Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia says that one is considered overweight when his or her body mass index is above twenty five, and is considered obese above thirty percent. According to a Harris Poll conducted in March 2002, eighty percent of Americans older than twenty-five are overweight. The only description for this alarming statistic is total disgust, however, not towards those who are overweight, but disgust towards the American way of life. The United States is by far the most gluttonous country in the world.
It recently came to my attention how voracious my homeland was when I left the country and traveled to the United Kingdom. I soon noticed a distinct difference in the overall appearance of the British crowds; there were hardly any fat people.