I: Healthy People
One of the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator topics is “Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity” (2020 LHI Topics, 2018). Nutrition, physical activity and obesity and intimately related to one another and to the nation’s health, as the Healthy People 2020 initiative points out. As Healthy People 2020 points out, “Most Americans, however, do not eat a healthful diet and are not physically active at levels needed to maintain proper health” and as a result Americans have “experienced a dramatic increase in obesity. This is a problem because obesity has been linked to major problems down the line for many people—problems that can result in “heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, which are among the leading causes of death” (2020 LHI Topics, 2018). As Hruby and Hu (2015) note, obesity is fast becoming a major problem in America and needs to be addressed quickly because of the potentially fatal results that can stem from a lifestyle of poor nutrition and exercise habits, which leads to obesity.
II: Research
The incidence of obesity in the U.S. is alarming: Today, approximately 1 in 3 adults (34.0%) and 1 in 6 children...
One of the major problems is that fact that access to easy, pre-packaged or fast food is so easy today: Hruby and Hu (2015) show that “with few restrictions on access to or availability of food, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the USA climbed virtually unmitigated over the last 50 years” (p. 674). Obesity is very prevalent in the U.S., with obesity rates surging among children 200% to 500% in the past half century (Flynn, McNeil et al., 2015). The impact of this high rate of incidence and high prevalence is that America’s health is worsening and the risk of such serious issues as heart disease, diabetes or stroke is too high.
Two at-risk populations are children and adults. Childhood obesity is a major issue because it impacts a child’s development and can lead a child towards a lifetime of poor health. Adult obesity is problematic because adults are more at risk for developing heart disease or having a stroke. These two populations must be made aware of the risks they face on account of habits related to nutrition and exercise. If they are not eating right or exercising, they will fail to maintain a healthy…
