Obesity Epidemic: The Most Important Change Starts With You

Author: Laura Rayburn

The prevalence of obesity in this country is noticeable even to the untrained eye. A simple trip out to the grocery store or the shopping mall will reveal to the most casual observer that a significant portion of the population in America is either obese or overweight. Indeed, obesity is reaching epidemic levels in this country (and around the world), and it is bringing plenty of health problems along for the ride.

Around the world, as both modern technology and the collective standard of living have increased, people have been eating more calories at meal times while burning less of those calories through physical activity during the course of their work day. And the resulting calorie imbalance is part of the reason that obesity has reached epidemic levels around the globe. In fact, scientists estimate that there are over 1 billion overweight adults world-wide, with about 300 million of those adults meeting the threshold for clinical obesity. And unfortunately, the waistlines aren’t the only things that suffer, as obesity is a major factor in many diseases and ailments.

Furthermore, adults are not the only ones that find themselves facing this problem, and many children are finding themselves falling into the obesity category. Scientists estimate that there are 22 million overweight children under the five world-wide. Just in America alone, the Surgeon General notes that the number of overweight children has doubled in the span of a generation, while the number of overweight adolescents has even tripled.

While genetics does shoulder some of the blame for weight problems, bad genes do not take sole responsibility for the rapid rise in obesity around the world. Even in poor and underdeveloped nations, a host of studies have shown that obesity is on the rise. That is to say, obesity is a worldwide problem, and not confined to nations with somewhat closed gene pools.

Unfortunately, the bad news does not end there. The rising costs of providing health care for obese individuals continues to put a strain on health care systems as they continue to deal with the many diseases and conditions related to obesity, including high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, and increased insulin resistance. Effective weight management strategies must be adopted by the world at large if we are going to be able to get the obesity epidemic under control once again. And while world-wide changes in attitude and lifestyle are going to be slow coming, you can already take steps toward achieving this goal by eating healthier. This means choosing healthy foods and snacks.

Look for YoNaturals organic vending machines to find healthy snacks while you are on the go, because the most important changes will start with you.

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.

YoNaturals Healthy Vending Weblog | YoNaturals | YoNaturals San Diego | YoNaturals California | YoNaturals Health Vending, Solana Beach, CA 92075