The Battle Against Obesity Essay -- Overweight Weight Obese Essays

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Obesity is a disease that affects nearly one-third of the adult American population, or approximately 60 million Americans. The number of overweight and obese Americans has continued to increase since 1960, a trend that shows no sign of subsidence. Today, 64.5 percent, or about 127 million adult Americans are categorized as being overweight or obese. Each year, obesity causes at least 300,000 excess deaths in the U.S., and healthcare costs of American adults with obesity amount to approximately $100 billion. Obesity is characterized by increased body weight and is caused by the excessive accumulation of fat. By taking in more calories than are burned on a daily basis, the excess is then stored in your body as fat. Doctors and scientists generally agree that men with more than 25 percent of body fat and women with more than 30 percent of body fat are considered to be overweight. However, it is difficult to measure body fat precisely. The body mass index (BMI) has b ecome the most common method used in medical standard today. Among several factors such as diet and exercise, there are five main causes that contribute to the growing number of obese people in America: environmental factors, psychological factors, genetic or hereditary factors, underlying physical factors, and medication factors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Our environment plays a huge part in many cases of obesity. Environmental factors include lifestyle behaviors such as what and how much a person eats and how active they ten...