Monday, March 13, 2017

Poverty and Obesity go hand in hand

My research question is, “why has obesity in low-income families become a bigger epidemic in the U.S. than in any other country?” This question prompted me to find an article called “Poverty and Obesity in the U.S.”, I know that it’s reputable because it’s an article taken from US National Library of Health and Medicine archive. This article can help those of you that are trying to look for reasons as to why poverty and obesity goes hand in hand. From what I found in this article is that families that are of low income that live in “poverty-dense” areas are in what is known as “food desserts”. The definition of a food desert is “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.” With that being said the food that these families are provided with are of malnutrition and unfresh. From what fresh food is available to them they may not be able to afford because it is highly priced.

Other reasons that were found to contribute to the obesity of poor areas was that there was a high consistency of sedentaries. Sedentary, for those that don’t know, is the tendency to spend much time seated and/or somewhat inactive. Doing this causes people to exert less energy and have the below average amount of exercise that most would conduct on a daily basis. The estimated amount of time sedentary individuals move is two hours a day. This leading cause in obesity could be fixed by taking up a physical activity, but as in most poverty stricken places, the outside world may not be the safest place to be. Another cause that adds to the growing list. The cycle is never ending, for where you think you can find a solution to one problem another arises.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198075/

4 comments:

  1. This is a good website for my research. Proverty and obesity is big crisis in the US. I can tie this with gmos.

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  2. It's a vicious cycle that the poor have no say in, really. Going to take the other portion of the country to help them out.

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  3. I could find this article very helpful for research. Low income families tend to turn to fast food items because the friendly cost, which can be very detrimental to thier diets. Society need to move to change the cost of healthier foods so that lower middle class famlies can afford healthier diets.

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  4. Most of the poor families have kids over weight. But it's not because they are poor, it's just that they don't want to make a sacrifice in buying healthy food. For example instead of wasting what little they have they should save and make an effort to buy what is necessary and be able to mange their food. The thing is they choose to take the easy way and buy more junk food that is cheaper. Doesn't matter what class they are considered, it's up to them on how bad they want to be healthier

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