Hybrid Essay

Ivan Aguilar

Professor Sean Pessin

English 114B

April 22, 2013

Hybrid Essay

            Over the course of the production of my blog about obesity, I have learned many things about it and this is a topic that I believed I had quite a good understanding of. I’ve learned about obesity in a human body perspective such as being overweight (or obese) is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. I’ve also learned about obesity in a societal perspective such as being overweight (or obese) is associated with health problems that have a significant economic impact on health systems and the medical costs. They have both direct and indirect costs.

            Although obesity is really about medical and societal issues, I really didn’t believe obesity can have myths about itself and to add on, these myths are being spread as a fact and are believed by many people. One myth that really astonished me was that high fructose corn syrup uniquely contributed to obesity. The reason is because that when you think of food being high on something, you automatically believe that it can do no good to your body. So food having high fructose corn syrup automatically leaves you thinking that it can do damage to your body but it actually doesn’t. It does the same to your body as any other sugar. This one myth is the number one myth that people keep spreading as a fact. The only reason it is being treated as a fact is because this false conventional is being spread by these certain groups of people who have wisdom on food such as green eating activists and assorted other food cops. Of course, since it is being spread by these green eating activists and assorted other food cops, people become gullible and easily believe this false piece of experience. The reason that these green eating activists and “cops” are trying to take advantage of their own society to perpetuate another myth that table sugar is a healthier alternative to high fructose corn syrup.

            Something I would have liked to continue researching would be how some authoritative figures take advantage of the public and lie to them about certain food facts just to take their money. It’s just interesting and hard to believe that there are authoritative figures out there that do not care for the health of the public and are willing to lie. It really is a very important factor why our society is obese and why it keeps getting worse. These authoritative figures shouldn’t be seen as authoritative if they have a huge part on the impact it has caused to our society. Rather than promoting healthiness, they secretly promote a negative impact. Although, society has begun to promote healthiness and staying fit with having days to go outdoors instead of being indoors continuing the lifestyle of an unhealthy living.

            As I continued producing my experimental blog about obesity, I noticed that I might have contradicted myself a bit. As I began my blog, I began with producing blog entries about why obesity is what it is and why it shouldn’t be around in any society but as I continued, I began to defend the obesity problem with saying that it also has its advantages. I realized that obesity is the number one problem to face America in recent years but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you must not have any fat in your body whatsoever. Having some fat in your body doesn’t harm you at all and actually does have advantages that help protect you from certain diseases and heart complications. That doesn’t also necessarily mean that you should eat as much as you can to gain weight. It’s about keeping your body at a moderately healthy weight. You don’t need to be extremely muscular or be extremely obese to be healthy. Keep your body and your lifestyle at a moderate level to keep from contacting many diseases and complications.

            With that being said, I believe that this problem that is facing America as we speak has the right to be called the number one problem facing America. America has taken a huge amount of damage due to this problem we call obesity. Whether it is economic problems or health care problems, obesity has damaged America in many different levels. With all the money already being spent on health care and trying to treat this so called disease, it is still expected for the price to rise well over 100 billion dollars to try to treat it. It’s not even a guarantee that this disease will even be treatable although so much money is being spent. Spending this much money is definitely a huge blow to society in an economic level. People don’t realize what damage they are giving to society in a wholesome way but people keep giving the damage without realizing that at the same time they are receiving it.

            One-third of the US is obese and the numbers keep rising, so that means that more than one-third of the population are in danger of obesity-related conditions which include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death. Being obese takes a huge toll of damage to the body, which eventually will lead to death with all the complications that come along. With that one-third of the population being obese, it is spread out in all of the US. Each state in the US has about 25 and above percent of obesity prevalence, which I might add, is still increasing and rapidly. The children will follow in their parents’ footsteps and will also live an obese lifestyle. Children are what will change the future in the United States but not giving the children some motivation to not follow these footsteps, instead they encourage it.

            Children’s prevalence towards obesity has grown rapidly as well with the promotion of all this fast food on television.  The percent of obesity is above 30% in every state just in children. That isn’t the necessarily the children’s fault though. The parents’ busy lifestyle, such as work and other time-occupying endeavors is the blame. They aren’t really there to regulate what the children should eat to keep them healthy and in shape but this busy lifestyle prevents that so to make things easier, they decide to buy them fast food and promote the prevalence of obesity.

            When I began this blog, I would speak about obesity as a whole but then slowly, I realized that I began pushing my attention towards children and how obesity affects them. I didn’t realize this until the end of my research on obesity. My focus shifted towards children without realizing it and I slowly turned my blog into children’s obesity. As soon as I realized it, I asked if children or adults would have a bigger impact on society as a whole. I was conflicted on whether I should continue this blog as a whole society or only solely focusing on children. I then realized that in order for children to become obese, the adults had to take a part on that effect on children, which meant that this blog had to be seen as a whole rather than focusing only on children. Children are the effect of what the adults have caused due to their own decisions and lifestyle, so seeing the effects of obesity as a whole society was a better decision.

Work Cited

. N.p.. Web. 23 Apr 2013. <http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/what_we_do.aspx?id=82>.

. N.p.. Web. 23 Apr 2013. <http://www.obesitymyths.com/>.

. N.p.. Web. 23 Apr 2013. <http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html>.