Overeating and Obesity in College Students: Causes and Solutions
This paper examines the rising epidemic of obesity among college students, focusing on how excessive calorie intake from large restaurant portion sizes drives weight gain. The author presents the health consequences of obesity, including heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, and analyzes socioeconomic disparities in obesity rates. The paper argues that dieting combined with exercise is essential for weight management and proposes a gamified mobile application that uses football-themed point rewards to motivate students to monitor daily calorie intake and make healthier eating choices.
- Introduction: Portion sizes and dietary awareness as obesity drivers
- The Obesity Health Crisis: Global obesity epidemic and health consequences
- Risk Factors and College Environments: Calorie overconsumption and campus food access
- A Gamified Calorie-Tracking Solution: Mobile app design with football-themed incentives
- Conclusion: Calorie monitoring as obesity prevention strategy
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounded in real data: The paper uses concrete statistics (2.8 million deaths annually, 78.6 million Americans obese, $147 billion annual medical costs) to establish the seriousness of the obesity problem.
- Audience-centered approach: The author identifies college students as the target population and directly addresses their specific environmental pressures (campus food availability, budget constraints, buffet-style dining).
- Practical, actionable solution: Rather than abstract recommendations, the paper proposes a specific, implementable intervention—a phone app—with clear mechanics (football-themed point system) designed to appeal to the student audience.
- Causal logic: The paper traces a clear chain from portion size → overconsumption → weight gain → obesity-related diseases, making the stakes transparent.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper employs a problem-solution framework common in public health and applied ethics writing. The author establishes credibility by citing government and health organizations (WHO, CDC, NIH, Mayo Clinic), then moves from epidemiological evidence to risk-factor analysis, and finally to a tailored intervention. This structure mirrors real health promotion scholarship and demonstrates how to connect macro-level data (global obesity trends) to micro-level behavioral change (individual student calorie logging).
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a five-part structure: (1) an engaging hook and thesis introducing portion size as a root cause; (2) epidemiological evidence on obesity prevalence and consequences; (3) risk-factor analysis, emphasizing dietary intake and the college environment; (4) a detailed proposal for a gamified intervention, including design rationale; and (5) a brief conclusion that reinforces the solution. This scaffolding is typical of policy-proposal and intervention-design papers, where the solution must be justified by prior evidence and tailored to audience psychology.
Introduction
Have you ever been to a restaurant and noticed how much food they give you for such a reasonable price? This is a common occurrence in today's society and a major contributing factor to the rise of obesity. Many people do not realize how vital diet is to living a healthier lifestyle. After conducting a needs assessment with college students, I found that seventy-five percent of them did not diet to lose weight. While the food you eat accounts for approximately ten percent of your Total Energy Expenditure (TEE), it remains significant in creating meaningful body changes. By highlighting health risks and emphasizing the necessity of combining diet with exercise, this paper demonstrates how reducing portion sizes can help you lose weight.
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