Is Technology to Blame for Americas Obesity Problem? Essay -- Overweig

As a future educator of physical education, I feel that our nation’s weight problem is an issue that needs to be addressed. I feel that it is and will be my job to educate students about the importance of taking care of your body because â€Å"fat kids have a 92% chance of becoming fat adults† (www.amp.com). The leading cause of death in the United States, for men and women, is heart disease. â€Å"The United States alone the estimated annual number of deaths attributable to obesity is about 280,000.† (www.members.iglou.com) â€Å"Results on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2000 indicate that an estimated 64 percent of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese.† (www.cdc.gov) In addition, â€Å"The number of overweight children in the United States has more than doubled since the early 1970s† (www.naaso.org) and â€Å"about 15 percent of children and adolescents are now overweight.† (www.cdc.gov) There is a difference in being overweight and being obese. Being overweight â€Å"refers to increased body weight in relation to height, when compared to some standard of acceptable or desirable weight.† (www.cdc.gov) Being over weight may or may not be due to the increase in body fat. It may be due to an increase in lean muscle. A perfect example of this is in professional athletes. Professional athletes may be very lean and muscular, with very little body fat, yet may weigh more than others of the same height. This may qualify the athlete as â€Å"overweight† due to their large muscle mass. This is based on the belief of someone who has come up with what they believe to be desirable. Now â€Å"obesity is defined as an excessively high amount of body fat or adipose tissue in relation to lean body mass. The amount of ... ...e. No one is making you eat what you are it is your choice. I think we should also think about things that we are doing to our children, which is training them to be lazy. An example of this is when it is a nice day outside and we allow our children to stay inside and play video games or watch television. This is a great opportunity to have your kids getting some more activity. Something we should consider not doing anymore is to stop putting televisions in our children’s bedrooms. â€Å"If a child replaces those almost 20 minutes a week with ANY other activity (besides reading or thinking), he, or she is going to be more physically active. Even painting would be more active than watching television.† (www.texas.teachers.net) Robinson TN. Reducing children’s television viewing to prevent obesity: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 1999; 282: 1561-7.