Obesity Epidemic or scam?

After last weeks lecture of fat phobia and the claimed obesity epidemic that the United States is suffering with, made me think of many things. The most shocking piece of information that I got out of the lecture was that more people are dying from eating disorders, malnutrition, and being underweight than obesity; yet obesity is getting more attention. Why is this the case? Of course I am not trying to state that obesity is not important enough to be getting this attention, but should not such a thing as underweight, which is killing more, be considered the epidemic that needs the same if not more attention.

I delve into eating disorders a little more and extracted that 8 million Americans are suffering with eating disorders. Of those suffering, 5-10% will die in 10 years, 18-20% will die after 20 years, and only 40% fully recover. That calculates to 4,800,000 people in America who are suffering this year with an eating disorder will die or struggle with the number one mental disease killer for the rest of their lives.

How does this tie into sport and society. I believe those two very thing are the cause

and masterminds behind the epidemic idea of obesity. A major contributor to motivation is

money. Sport in particular can gain a tremendous amount with people who fall under the obesity

scale. Those people need to shed pounds and sports is the way to do it. Sports bring a large

amount of money to begin with but if the promotion of entering youths into expensive

sport programs or organizations will increase profit. Other benefactors within sport...gyms, personal

trainers, and eventually n the long run intercollegiate sports, and professional sports. The culture

is another to blame. It is needless to say that the U.S. surrounds their culture on

the perfect body, and being fat in this society will not cut it. It shames me to say that the culture and media suggest, but it is okay to

be too skinny than too fat. Massive representations of the body in the media is adding to this notion.

The U.S. is suffering with both obesity and eating disorders, which clearly indicates that the epidemic at

hand is body image.

Alejandra Fregoso

Kin 332I Sect. 03