Speech on obesity

You are probably wondering what classifies a person as obese. It is all decided by your Body Mass Index or probably best heard of as simply BMI which is a simple formula that compares height and weight to give an estimated amount of fat in your body. If you have a BMI between 25kg per meter squared and 30kg per meter squared you are considered to be overweight. But if you have a BMI of over 30 you are obese. Unfortunately the word obese is becoming more common. Currently 25% of adults and 30% of children are considered to be obese in the UK which costs the NHS approximately one billion pounds a year according to figures released last year.

If attitudes towards obesity don’t change, by the year 2050 it is expected that a massive 50% percent of UK’s population will be obese, a figure that will see the costs of obesity rise to forty nine billion pounds. You are all probably asking yourselves what makes obesity so costly. Well, the answer is that obesity causes so many diseases which all need to be cured. Diseases such as; Cancer, Diabetes, Breathing problems, High cholesterol and High blood pressures. As consequence high fees must be paid by the NHS to pay for these expensive cures.

While portions of food have something to do with obesity it is also what we eat that is harmful. According to an internet source the average number of calories taken in by an obese person is three thousand five hundred, where the UK department of health recommend an intake of two thousand five hundred calories for men and two thousand calories for women. While thinner people might take exercise weekly most obese people admit that they don’t make an effort to do any exercise. According to the BBC three in four obese people admit to not taking part in any physical exercise during the week.

In my opinion the reason for the sudden increase in the number of obese people in Britain is due to the change in work ethics. In 1975 only 10% of British adults were obese, only 35 years later that number has increased to 25%. I believe that the low percentage of obesity in the UK back in 1975 was due to hard physical work. People were burning more calories and gaining weight wasn’t an issue. Also, the social life of the new generation of people involves a lot more drinking. Drinking has become more excessive and the calories involved are astronomical.

For examlple, a 20ml shot of Vodka contains 55 calories and a 275ml bottle of WKD contains 228 calories which all add up especially when people go out drinking more than twice a week. Drinking and smoking are both very expensive hobies, In my opinion money from smoking and drinking would be better spent on healthy food. I don’t think that people shoud quit drinking or smoking, just do less of it. I believe that technology has had a massive part to play in the massive increase. Jobs these days have much less physical work involved. Jobs include more office work and computer work where people sit down while working.

Children and teenagers have more electrical games such as the ‘X box’ and the ‘Play Station’. They spend more time indoors playing computer games rather than being outside doing more active activities. My proposal is that the government put more emphasis on the increasing number of obese children. In my opinion the road to obesity begins as a child. A child will eat what there parents give them. Unless they are given a healthy option they will continue to prefer the unhealthy option and by the time they are old enough to recognize the taste of different foods they will refuse to eat what they don’t like.

In my opinion young children shouldn’t be given too many food choices. The difference between children now and back in 1975 is that they didn’t have the option of burgers and other fast food meals, they had to eat fresh vegetables that were grown in the family garden. Children in the 70’s didn’t have the luxury of being able to say “I don’t like this” as so many children do these days. “Fast food” has become increasingly popular and I believe that kids should be encouraged to eat healthily from a very young age and that pareants should be educated on the effects of un-healthy food on the body.

I think that this could be achieved by using adverts that show a revolting image of what the worst out come could be. For example this advert was made last year to increase the awareness of fake drugs bought from foreign countries (Show the rat poison advert). Can you please raise your hand if this advert has put you off buying any medical drugs from over seas. I believe that if adverts with the same purpose as this one were created with the ambition to reduce the number of people that eat “fast food” meals it could be achieved. I believe that parents are un aware of the effects that un-healthy eating could have.

For example, did you know that if you were obese it triples your chances of having type two diabetes? Parents should be made aware of the facts, and the facts are that exercise does help. If anybody takes part in sport or any physical exercise they will burn calories. I think that exercise with a combined healthy diet would help obese people lose weight. I believe that if the government target obesity from a very young age the percentage of obese people can be decreased slowly, generation by generation untill a better society has been created and future problems solved.

By losing weight I believe that obese people can finally become part of a society that will not judge them, they will have better chances at getting jobs and life will become much easier and happier. They will not have to live with the worries of becoming attacked by a disease. With America currently being stereotyped as an obese country the same will surely happen to Britain if there isn’t a decrease in the percentage of obese people. Without the change in attitudes Britain will gain a reputation that it doesn’t want and financial issues will spiral out of control. People will become lazier due to the increase in weight.