Over the last century becoming overweight has been an ongoing enormous problem among people of all ages worldwide, more specifically the United States. One of the biggest factors in becoming overweight is the lack of awareness, because many times when one eats he or she is not fully aware that they are eating and why they are eating. This is where the problem comes in. As a result of the constant unawareness of eating foods that contain salts, sugars and fat becoming overweight follows and over a period of time a person becomes obese. Obese is the stage where ones health is severely in danger because he or she is no longer in control of their eating habits and rapid weight gain.
In the reading The End of Overeating by David a. Kessler MD, Kessler explains to the readers, his philosophy on the ethics of the eating habits of human beings. This reading answers the questions of why people eat, when people eat, how much do people eat, why they continue to eat. The portion that I found to be very interesting was about the fact that people’s taste buds are attracted to foods that have a combination of fat, sugar and salts. “Mix the same amount of sugar in low fat and high fat products, however, and people invariably chose the higher fat mixtures. Fat and sugar levels both influence preference” (Kessler 13). The body has a mind of its own and the body craves a high level of sugary and fatty products. The yearning of these products becomes an addiction to individuals. Addiction in the aspect of when the body wants what it wants it must be given when and what it wants, no matter the journey.
Many individuals are also not aware of what they are eating and how it will affect them in the long run. Cereal is a big part of the common American diet. Cereal is a simple quick snack to quench hunger for breakfast and sometimes other meals during the day, mixed with milk. Some people, mostly young children eat cereal at least twice a day, and grow up eating it. In the long run feed it to their children, as the process repeats itself. What most people don’t know is that the cereal that they eat and their kids eat is harmful. “Froot Loops, the high-calorie, high- sugar cereal” (Kessler 15). As I stated before, the body craves fatty and sugary products. The result of the constant consumption of these products will be the issue of becoming overweight and in the long run obesity. Cereals like Froot loops are tremendously popular among kids and as a child and their body becomes used to this product they become dependent.
Over the past decade cereal advertisements have grown. The producers have found new and more improved ways in which they advertise their product. Through television, the use of colour to catch the eye of young children, fun adventures that cereal mascots set out on, fun puzzles at the back of the boxes, and little toys inside of the boxes. Children love animals that they can relate too, animals that interact with them and make their lives more playful, and this exactly what cereal producers do. They do whatever it takes to get their customers to stay loyal and intoxicate their bodies. As children eat the cereal constantly as a child they along with their bodies’ become use to the fat and sugar in it. Then their bodies become addicted to the cereal. This is where biological mechanism and homeostatic comes in. Both of these terms are basically a system in the body used to regulate and manage the fat and sugar consumption of one and prevent a person from becoming fat. However, these systems fail to function correctly because of hyper palatability. Palatability is basically the capacity the body has to stimulate ones appetite and enable one to eat even more. In other words, our stomach is one size to begin with. As we begin to fill our stomachs the stomach obviously will begin to stretch each time you put an increased amount of food inside each time. As a result of people not being aware of their eating habits, they are not aware that the amount increases each time. And over a period of time the individual becomes fat and suffers from heart and body problems. If one does not become more conscious of what he or she is eating they become threats to themselves.
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