Over the past thirty years the country has progressively been getting more and more obese (Carroll and Fernstrom, para 3). When looking at racial groups there are a few differences in obesity but they are all gaining weight at around the same rate and there has to be an underlying cause to it. The graph below shows how much each racial group, man and woman, has been progressively gaining weight throughout the timeframe studied (Carroll and Fernstrom, para 5).
Over the years of the study, the food environment has also changed a great amount. Not only is there now very cheap food but the cheap food also happens to be extremely convenient which explains how and why obesity levels are rising. A scholarly article explains the negative effects from eating fast food by saying, "consumption of fast food, which have high energy densities and glycemic loads, and expose customers to excessive portion sizes, may be greatly contributing to and escalating the rates of overweight and obesity in the USA," (Rosenheck, para 1).When you are hungry and on the go it is much more convenient and fast to stop at a fast food restaurant and grab a greasy and starchy burger, large fry and large soda instead of going home to prepare and cook a healthy, nutritious meal. Even though this meal isn't healthy and contains hardly any of the nutrients your body needs, it does the trick by satisfying your hunger in a quick way at a cheap cost, which is why many American's resort to this.
Another cause of obesity that you may not think of is poor education. Poor education goes somewhat hand-in-hand with cheap foods leading to obesity. In a scholarly article on obesity the author said, "the highest rates of obesity occur among population groups with the highest poverty rates and least education" (Drewnowski, para 1). Poorly educated people do not know all of the negative effects of obesity. A lot of them will just assume that it is effecting their appearance so they don't think it is a problem but in reality it is a huge health risk and can tremendously shorten their lifespan.
