Why does America have an astonishing 46% obesity rate? What has caused the obesity rate to rise by  214% from 1950-2000? The major causes of this increase are the lack of exercise, bad eating habits, and lack of sleep. In this article I will inform you how these topics are affecting Americans as a whole.

However obesity as a whole is a very complicated subject as it isn’t certain what affects weight gain the most and there are many reasons. For example some believe that genetics play a part and also some theorize that your environment plays a role in affecting obesity. 

One reason Americans have become more obese is because of the lack of exercise that we get everyday. One cause for this is that roughly 80% of jobs in the US are desk jobs where people are sitting down for hours on end which is damaging to cardiovascular health, posture, mental health, and stress levels.

Another cause of the rise of obesity is the bad eating habits and options. In Utah there was a study on what percentage of Americans eat unhealthy. Around 88% of adult Americans have an unhealthy diet; also 36% of American adults eat fast food every night. Also most food being consumed is filled with sodium, saturated fat, and added sugars. A cause affecting diet is the income of the person from America with lower classes being more susceptible to being obese than the upper social classes because of the options of food available in their budgets. 

A major cause that is not talked about that affects people’s weight is also the amount of sleep that you get. The less you sleep the more your body prompts you to eat larger portions of food, increasing the amount of carbs you eat. A reason for this is when you don’t sleep your hormones for hunger are disrupted and make us feel more hungry the longer we are awake. 

Interestingly some people think a person’s political party has something to do with it, for example one person I interviewed said, “These liberals think being fat and dying sooner is better than being active and preserve your life.”  While this isn’t true, there are interesting connections, but perhaps not in the way people think. The republican party is actually on average more obese than the democratic party. However the political party is most likely not the cause but the geography of where they are. For example most republicans live in Southern states and also midwest where the average obesity rate is far higher than in other states. 

I hope this article has informed you of the real problems the U.S is facing with the ongoing increase of obesity. If we don’t find a way to decrease the obesity rate we will be facing major health issues as a country as obesity leads to increased strokes, blood pressure, mood, memory, respiratory system and so much more negative effects. Around 280,184 thousand US citizens die from obesity related causes every year.