There is no easy way to say this, but the U.S. has an obesity problem, and it seems to be getting worse. It prompts one to ask: Why is it getting worse? And how do we fix it?
The “why” is a varied and complicated answer, but we can start by dissecting the types of food that Americans consume. We are a nation blessed with an abundance of food. We can purchase food literally anywhere, and grocery stores always seem to be stocked. With easy access to all kinds of food, there also come ultra-processed items and additives, which have infiltrated our food supply.
Ultra-processed items include soda, flavored chips, white bread, and sugary breakfast cereals — foods that are more artificial than real and have more calories than nutritional value. According to The Wall Street Journal: “Ultra-processed foods common in the U.S. include artificial additives and highly refined ingredients and are rich in starch, sugar and salt, says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University. He points to a study in the European Journal of Nutrition that found that among adults in the U.S., 57% of calories come from ultra-processed food, compared with 12% in Europe.” This is part of the reason that you can come back from an indulgent European vacation and find that you have actually lost weight.
Additives are chemicals that are put into food for multiple purposes including preservation or to enhance the flavor. Additives can be detrimental because they can stimulate the brain, prompting it to want to eat more. The Journal also found another key difference between European food and U.S. food: “About 300 to 400 additives are approved for use in food in the EU, compared with more than 3,000 in the U.S.”
To make matters even more complicated, American school children are being taught wrong things about food portions and what types of foods their bodies need. This started long ago, but more recently The Food Pyramid, which was adopted in 1992 and which many of us grew up with, is scientifically incorrect and was the result of successful lobbying by different food industries. It didn’t really improve much under the 2005 remake in terms of accurately defining foods that the body needs to be healthy.
Sadly, this trend of the food industry having a say in what is “healthy” or not continues to play out in modern-day dietary fads. Big Sugar so demonized fats that for a while Americans were convinced fats were the problem in their diet. Now, the trend tends to label sugar as the main contributor to obesity. While there may be something to that, marketers and the food industry have opened up a whole other industry with sugar alternatives so that they can label food items “sugar free.” These alternatives can be even worse for people.
Our food, despite its abundance, is not necessarily high quality, and Americans are constantly told different messages about what is considered “healthy.” We are sick, tired, and obese, and the food is largely to blame. However, there is another contributing factor to this dilemma. We also have a society that tends to be more sedentary. Part of the problem is that if we aren’t eating food that gives our body energy, we don’t want to get up and move our bodies. And if we don’t get up and move our bodies, we aren’t able to burn off calories. It turns into a vicious cycle. According to a study on the relationship between obesity and average daily steps, on average Americans only take 4,774 steps a day. This translates to just over two miles of walking per day, and that’s not sufficient.
Here we are in 2023, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is posting Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps for the country. From these maps, the New York Post reported: “22 states in 2022 at least 35% of adults were obese — an increase from 19 states in 2021. The CDC noted that 10 years ago, there were no states that had an adult obesity prevalence at or above 35% [emphasis added].”
What happened in the past 10 years to expedite this change? Our cultural priorities have shifted. The 2010s saw more and more cellphones and personal devices, which consequently have made us more prone to stay at home and do nothing. There’s also been a cultural shift away from trying to eat healthy — which arguably pushed too far and spawned an eating disorder debacle — and toward celebrating all body types (i.e., the “body positivity” movement). This essentially greenlighted the switch from restrictive eating to excessive eating, and neither extreme is healthy.
We also have become a society — especially since the COVID lockdowns — that has the convenience of having everything delivered to our houses, including groceries. We no longer have to leave our couches to complete these basic tasks.
Moreover, obesity was labeled a disease in 2013. But obesity generally is a symptom of other diseases. Calling it a disease in and of itself seems to take away the element of personal responsibility that also goes into food choices and exercise.
The “why” of America’s obesity problems is complicated and there isn’t a perfect answer. The “how to fix it” isn’t an easy answer, either. When it comes to combating obesity, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different bodies find that different combinations of food consumption and exercise lead to a healthy weight. The difficulty is that this takes time, trial and error, and sorting through diet gimmicks and other food industry whoppers to finally find what works.
There are many battles to fight when it comes to getting Americans’ weight problem back under control, but it all starts at the individual level with our food and lifestyle choices.
