Introduction
The sight of an obese adult has become a common phenomenon to a point where people are no-longer concern because the situation seems to be the norm. Obesity is on the increase among adults. When visiting the cities, one cannot help to notice that the numbers of fast food restaurants are on the increase as well. Today people consider that going out for a meal is simple option to find food or drinks, thus fail to be concern of what they eat. A greater concern is failure to engage leisure activities that may assist to structure the physical appearance of the body.
Discussion
Obesity is the increase of the body’s weight over the natural limit because of accumulated fats. An obese person has an increase in body’s weight by over 30% of the ideal weight (Luffiyya et al, 2003). The body accumulates fats because of the increase in the intakes amount or quantity. According to Luffiyya et al (2003), the standard adult human body contains approximately 30-35 billion fat cells. Their size increases when the body gains weight. Continual weight gain means production of new cells, which makes it hard for the body to get rid of them, which is why the more weight one has, the harder for it to lose.
In accordance with Oeffinger et al on the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2003, “obesity is an important predictor of many adult diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and ultimately, cardiovascular disease”. Today the modest form of obesity affecting majority of the adults is sturdily associable to the common risks or consequences such as coronary heart diseases. The major causes of obesity are the amplified food intake or diminished physical activities.
Obesity is a gradual procedural gain of energy or loss of physical activities. Today people have poor lifestyles and diets and technology enables the food industries to produce foods in high quantities without consideration of quality regarding the measure of fat or oil content. The demand for processed or fast foods is evident from the numbers of such business industries in operation today. People are forming bad eating habits in the family setting as well; they often buy ready-made foods instead of focusing more on the fruits, vegetables, white grain bread, brown rice and other unrefined carbohydrates.
One question many people would ask regards the long-run advancement effects of over weight gain. The argument presented in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (2008), is that technological progression is the main induction of the weight growths because of the inactivity of the home food production of the market products. The technological advancement has equally caused the low food prices because of the genetically modified agricultural innovations. The social setting today in homes and work-settings comprises of the computerized activities that reduces the physical activities. Obesity is a personal trade-off between the choices with regard to occupation, the activities one engages in during free time, location, lifestyle, and food intake behaviours (Proietto and Bour, 2004).
The technological growth is the main catalyst to progression over economical advancement and arguably the incentive to the food choices that people make today. Statistics indicates that natural food prices have been on the decrease in the recent past (Phillipson, 2001). There is also the aspect of job settings. People are today engaged in less strenuous activities due to the technological advancement. Similar calories intake but lower work input is a significant cause of the current obese cases among adults. You can sit at the comfort of your home and deliver the same work you used to when you had to walk two hundred meters to your office.
The unhealthy lifestyles such as poor or lack of physical activities continue to promote obesity over the years and this is eventually becoming a major problem among adults. People are no longer active enough to use the over-gained energy levels and therefore the extra calories are instead stored as fat.
Leisure engagements have also changed, people are not substituting the physical activities with indoors video, computers and television games at an alarming rate. Initially people still had poor diets but adequate exercises for leisure was the main reason why people had good health and thus minimized cases of obesity or obese-related illnesses. Outdoor games and activities were the only available option for leisure; today indoor activities encourage low physical participation and promote use of unhealthy bites in the house such as the junk food, which are the root cause of obesity (Philipson, 2001).
Outside catering is available for all meals. The breakfast beverage today is the soft drink accompanied by sandwiches or burritos. The takeout foods from the fast food restaurants have replaced the home meals. The snack foods and ready to take drinks are take-home meals. Today the lifestyle no longer involves the situation where the mother prepares meals. Argumentatively, there is no time for long-meals preparations and technology enhances the quick preparations such as the microwave technology to heat the McDonald’s takeaway foods (Lutfiyya et al, 2008).
The issue might be time as people claim to have little or less time to prepare proper meals due work related pressure but contrary, there are wide amount of time used in addictive browsing, charting or watching television. These are equally the key leisure activities that are not assisting in fighting the obesity occurrences and equally consuming time for preparation of good food.
Conclusion
In reality, the technology is a cost to the lost creativity and control over the required healthy lifestyle. It is making most people to be passive while making the acquisition and preparation of unhealthy meals easier or faster. The technology has equally changed on the content of what people consume. The labour involved in the preparations make people to prefer the easier to cook and serve options. Television is probably the most consequential part of technology that is amplifying the obesity epidemic. The amount of television viewing has highly increased and the fast food restaurant marketers are taking advantage of the situation.
Advertising is highly changing the eating habits and thus the ignorance over long-term effects regarding the decision to change the food choices. The laissez-fair system supports freedom in supply of junk food and related advertisements; therefore, the consumer has to make wise decisions over the available choices.
References
Lutfiyya, N et al. (2008). Overweight and Obese Prevalence Rates in African American and Hispanic Children: An Analysis of Data from the 2003–2004 National Survey of Children’s Health.
Journal of the American Board of Family medicine. (JABFM). Vol 21(3), Pp 191-199. Web.
Oeffinger, K et al. (2003) Obesity in Adult Survivors of Childhood Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia. Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 21. Web.
Philipson, T. J. (2001). The World Wide Growth in Obesity: An Economic Research Agenda, Health Economics, v 10, p 1-7.
Proietto, J. & Baur, L. (2004). Management of Obesity. Medical Journal of Australia (MJA). Vol. 180(9). Pp 474-480. Web.