America is bulging with fat not muscles. The number of overweight people in the U.S.A had increased by 60% in the twenty years before 2004. Also, the number of obese children had tripled in the thirty years before 2004. But just what is obesity? Well, when a man's body is over 25% he is obese and when a woman's body fat reaches over 30% she is obese. The fact is that America is the fattest country in the world because the percentage of overweight people in the U.S.A has steadily increased since the 1960's. As more and more people got TV's and they started eating more packaged and fast foods the epidemic began.



Though most people don't think girls should have muscles large per se, healthy muscles are certainly good for the health of anyone. But the ratio of body fat to lean muscle in America is heavily leaning towards obesity. This is a contest that hasn't a winner. The problem is so bad that Barbara J. Moore, Ph.D. is concerned that ?half of all children well be overweight by 2020.? This raises health concerns of people routinely having heart attacks at the age of thirty.

An alarm like that should scare people into changing their sedentary lifestyle, if for no other reason than to be a good example to their children. It should compel people to get their children away from the computer and into the ball park, out riding bicycles in parks that have bicycle routes, out swimming, hiking, running, bowling and the list of active activities goes on.

Losing weight and keeping it off seems to be the real problem. Many people don't have as big of a problem losing weight as keeping it off. Their bodies get comfortable with a certain amount of calories and changing that comfort level is difficult. The ways to lose weight are exercising, reducing calories and keeping them lower to maintain new weight. It helps to check food labels for the number of calories and keeping track of the calories you consume each day so you know how much you need to cut and to decide how to cut them. Other tactics are to climb the stairs instead of using the elevator (women should do this in pairs or groups for safety), walk from farther away in the parking lot, walk in place while watching TV, get people together to walks laps around the mall, join a softball league etc.

The scientific causes of obesity are five fold: genes, fatty foods, lifestyle, metabolic rate, and psychology. Some families have genes that are more prone to obesity, but with exercise and diet many people can control their weight, otherwise they can opt for certain medical procedures to help them. Obviously, to lose weight cutting out fast food and other fat laden foods is necessary. Coupling exercise with a low-fat, low-calorie diet is a helpful change in lifestyle to lose weight. Muscle is a higher burner of calories than fat. Muscles burn calories when resting. To get your muscles to partner with you in a weight loss program you need to do weight bearing exercise and just plan exercise to increase your metabolism. Many overweight people binge eat because of stress or depression. It is a vicious cycle and binge eaters may need counseling to help them.

Obesity is a national epidemic and a personal health issue that needs strict attention and effort put towards eliminating it by the individuals affected by its deadly grip. The obese person has to be responsible to change their state of being because it is very unlikely that food companies are really going to help you.