Obesity is a huge worldwide health problem

Obesity is a major global health issue, especially in the United States, where fast-food restaurants are proliferating at an unprecedented pace (Ogden et al, 809). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently discovered a 36% incidence of adult obesity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1). What is more worrying is the increase in childhood obesity, which was unheard of 30 years ago. What has improved is the abundance of fast food chains on every street corner. Furthermore, the simple availability of fast snacks, including in schools that participate in the free school feeding program, has exacerbated the problem. A study was undertaken by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2011 and 2014 placed the prevalence of obesity among the youth at 17% and 8.9% for pre-school-aged children which are quite an alarming number (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1).
A lot of solutions to combat obesity have been forwarded with little success as behind the scourge of obesity lies the major problem of food addiction. Food addiction has been characterized as just as disastrous as drug addiction as both cases showcase the same symptoms and self-defeating character traits. Obesity comes in where the daily calorie intake supersedes the calories burnt by the body for the production of energy. I believe one of the best solutions to end obesity would be to have obese people to have their own human hamster wheel at home. They would then have to run on the wheel for 8hrs a day with only a few water and snack breaks. This would help them lose extra weight and get their bodies in to shape. It could get better if the human hamster wheel is tied with the household electricity. This means that if they stop running they would not have electricity in the house.
Today’s generation use of technology has made work easier as well as crossed the boundaries of communication with social media and internet use compounded with the fact that avenues for entertainment such as cable television, games, movies are ever growing. Man’s work has been made easier but in turn people have become lazy and lack physical exercise as they use most of their time on electrical gadgets and a habit has been formed over time that has evolved in to culture of eating junk food while exploring electronic gadgets such as when surfing the internet or watching a movie. The idea of production of electricity through running in human hamster wheel is a brilliant idea especially that the electricity is cut off when one stops running. This would be ideal for today’s generation which is bewitched by electronic gadgets as they cannot fathom a world without their gadgets and thereby would rather run on the hamster wheel to produce electricity and thereby tackling the obesity problem.
The use of a human hamster wheel would further be a great idea as the major problem that faces obesity is people’s aversion to exercises and the requirement to run in the hamster wheel for eight hours would serve to integrate mandatory exercise that would in turn lead to the control of the obesity challenge. Further, the model is ideal as the obesity problem today is compounded by frequent consumption of junk food, and especially when either watching a movie or surfing the internet. The model is based on having breaks to have snacks and water, which is quite ideal as it deals with the problem of eating food irregularly and subsequently cuts down on food intake dealing effectively with obesity.
A lot of solutions have been forwarded to solve the obesity challenge but all in all, I find them ineffective and beside the point. One such solution is the proposition that eating of breakfast everyday would in turn lead to one’s reduction in weight. I do not see a connection between having breakfast every day and losing weight and in fact it can be argued that the breakfast is part of the problem when it comes to obesity. This is due to, there is no proof that eating breakfast will reduce one’s weight and logical reasoning is that the calorie intake during breakfast if not burnt down will result in the increase of weight.
Fad diets have become quite popular with the allure of losing weight fast and without exercise (Marie et al, 777). Most of these diets are composed of unhealthy and unbalanced diet and claim that one is losing fat while really what is being lost is water and thereby results are false and are proven quite soon when the body resumes normal functioning. Some examples of fad diets include: the blood type diet that is based on the notion that your blood type reacts with the food you eat. This development means that each blood type has a list of foods that are to be consumed which is quite restrictive and beside the point as there is no foundational evidence to support such a diet. Another such diet is the Werewolf diet that involves fasting according to the lunar calendar and while one may lose some weight due to the lack of eating, one is bound to gain the wait once the experience is over.
Paleo diets have been forwarded as another strategic way to combat obesity as traditional fresh farm foods have been fronted as the healthy approach that will lead to a reduction of weight by avoidance of the junk food. Although there rings a string of truth to the model, there is the misguided loss to the real cause of obesity, and that is food addiction. A person faced with obesity as a result of food addiction would have little or no results from the change of junk food to healthy foods as the quantity of food taken is also a challenge. Consequently, paleo diets as a way of solving the obesity challenge is an ineffective solution with little or no results.
The use of human hamster wheel for exercise and production of electricity is the best solution to deal with the challenge of obesity as so far proposed solutions have not worked efficiently given the ever rising number of people with obesity. My solution would best serve to control obesity as it hits at the core of the main problem facing obesity, a lack of exercise and spending way too much time surfing the internet or watching television. If my solution to the obesity challenge is not implemented, we run the risk of never solving the obesity problem. This development is mainly due to this generation integration of eating junk food while surfing the internet or watching television in to culture. Further, the vast amount of time spent on electronic gadgets live little or no time for exercise leading to obesity.
Work Cited
Ng, Marie, et al. "Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013." The lancet 384.9945 (2014): 766-781.
Ogden, Cynthia L., et al. "Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011- 2012." Jama 311.8 (2014): 806-814.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Overweight & Obesity Statistics About Overweight and Obesity, 2017. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health- statistics/overweight-obesity. Accessed 20 Jul, 2017.