Weight and Health Paper

Traditionally, weight and health were considered to be two interdependent notions since any problems with weight naturally resulted in serious health problems. It should be said that people noticed such interdependence quite a long time ago but this idea was scientifically proved only in the last decades when the real impact of weight problems on health were revealed and scientifically analyzed (Paeratakul 178). At the same time, it is necessary to underline that the major problem of the modern society is the problem of overweight leading to obesity and correlated health problems.
 

In fact, I believed that weight and health were really interdependent but I was practically convinced that obesity is the major problem that can threaten to our health because of the changes of our weigth. Nevertheless, a friend of mine, who was a professional nutritionist, warned me that there was another side of the medal, which was often hidden from us because it was and still is quite rare in well developed countries, at least, compared to the problem of obesity. He told me that the nutrition of contemporary people had changed dramatically within the last few decades that inevitably affected their health. He underlined that along with the problem of obesity, one the major challenges of the modern American society, there is still a problem of insufficient and malnutrition, especially in developing countries that lead to numerous health problems of many people to the extent that thousands and even millions of people are starving. The lack of good nutrition results in the wrong development or, to put it more precisely, underdevelopment of human bodies, numerous illnesses caused by malnutrition, especially those related to digestion (Colburn 77).
 

As for the problem of overweight, this problem is not less serious and nowadays it really threatens to the US since it becomes a real epidemic (Duenwald 69). In fact, the problem of obesity considerably affects human health because it provokes a bunch of diseases, including the higher risk of cardio-vascular diseases, which are actually the most widely spread diseases leading to the fatal outcomes (Duenwald 72). At the same time the problem of obesity is provoked only partially by the wrong nutrition as my friend said. In fact, nowadays, we do not really know what we eat. The development of new technologies and chemical industry along with the development of biotechnologies made our food quite different from what human beings get used to receive from nature in the past. As a result, consumption of products containing fats and low consumption of vitamins contributes to the deficit of essential elements and vitamins in human body that negatively affects not only our weight that grows considerably but our health as well.
 

On the other hand, our lifestyle has also changed dramatically. The majority of people lead a sedative lifestyle that contribute to the growth of weight and deterioration of health (Paeratakul 188). It should be pointed out that the lack of physical activities increases not only weight but also the risk of numerous diseases, including cardio-vascular and obesity only makes this risk even higher.

In such a situation, it is really important to pay more attention to our weight as an indicator and one of the determining factors influencing our health. It is not a secret that the US has already launched the struggle with obesity and the cult of healthy body is growing widely spread in the US. However, it is necessary to underline that any efforts of a state, health care organizations, and other institutions will hardly have any effect as long as our lifestyle and our choice of food remain unchanged. In this respect, it should be said that basically the problems of weight in the US are provoked by the sedative lifestyle and consumption of unhealthy food, the food Americans get used to eat in fast food restaurants, for instance (Paeratakul 199). As a result, more and more people suffer from obesity and overweight that deteriorate their health.
 

Consequently, it is necessary to solve these two problems in order to improve our health and make our weight closer to the norm. To put it more precisely, it is necessary to lead a more active lifestyle, which include some regular physical exercises, sport, etc. Also, it is necessary to pay a particular attention to the food we consume daily. In this respect, Americans have little choice and the food that could be labeled as healthy is really few because basically the healthy food is produced by organic farming, which is underdeveloped in the US at the present moment (Griscom 144). As a result, people have to consume food that contains elements that may be potentially dangerous to our health or contribute to the growth of weight that actually also dangerous to our health. This is why it is necessary to solve the problem of the provision of Americans with safe and healthy food in order to solve the problem of overweight and correlated health problems.