obesity in New York City

Ariela Zorrilla
English 110
Professor Krystyna Michael
December 10, 2019

New York is a huge city in which we have many accessibilities: transportation, schools, playgrounds and stores that are near to us and that most of the time can be positive but also can be negative. This map represents every neighborhood of New York City in which fast food restaurants are everywhere and it just take minutes to reach any of them, people have easy accessibility to fast food restaurants and that is one reason why they can consume them more, having more probabilities of getting obesity and other diseases due to the massive consumption of unhealthy food.

                                                         Obesity in New York city

                 Obesity is a chronic disease that we can get if we do not have control of the quality and quantity of the food that we eat, it can be caused by different factors like genetic, behavioral and environmental. And it can cause many other illnesses such as: diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Something that we must worry about is the fact that obesity had a significant increase in our society specially in New York city and it is not just affecting adults but children as well. Michael R. Bloomberg, a recognized entrepreneur that has made different campaigns against obesity, mentioned in the video “ NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s war on obesity” that this illness is killing five thousand people per year which is something to worry about. It is not a secret that new York is a big city in which people are busy all the time and many of them might not press attention to what they eat and that could be one of the possible reasons why the rate of obesity has increased within the last years and also, It is important to say that many people constantly visit and consume fast food restaurants because it is easier for them to consume that kind of food rather than healthy aliments, that is why that I present as my thesis statement that although fast food restaurants is more affordable for people with low income, it is one of the main reason why the rate of obesity has increased causing other illnesses and showing that it will get worse in the future.

                 Junk food is more affordable for people with low income

There are thousands of fast food restaurants in New York city and it is very accessible for people to reach them because they are in every neighborhood, in every corner. Among the most famous fast food restaurants are McDonald’s, Popeyes, burger king, Kennedy Fried Chicken and many more to where people go every day and consume their food. One of the reasons why people go to those restaurants it is not just because they enjoy their food, but also because that kind of food is cheaper and more affordable than healthy food. It is not easy for people with low income to spend more money in expensive food when they can spend their money in food that is unhealthy but cheaper. “The problem of the consumption of junk food is due to the inaccessibility of unhealthy food” (Carrol, Fernstrom, NBC News), in this article the main idea is that it is more easier for people to buy food in fast food restaurant because they will spend less money which is something that conduce people to the consumption of unhealthy food. Another interesting article that evokes the same idea is “Eating Healthy Will Cost You $550 More Per Year, Study Reveals” by Carey Polls mentions that unhealthy food is about $1.50 cheaper per day, or about $550 per year, than healthy food which is something that completely proves why people can get obesity easier than before nowadays and that is why people tend to consume that kind of food. Also, it is important to say that the cost of the life in New York city is anything but very expensive and people is always worrying to pay all the bills: rent, electricity, cable, ways of transportation and many of them do not have a big budget to afford healthy food that are more expensive than the food they will find in fast food restaurants.

                The consumption of junk food is the main reason why obesity has increased causing more illnesses.

Some of the main aspects of junk food is that they are high processed, and they contain big numbers of calories, that highly contributes to a person to become obese. Since people visit fast food restaurants every day, they are consuming two to three hundred of calories per day in meals plus the calories that have in the soft drinks that they also consume, the more people consume the unhealthy food the more they can get obese and people find this kind of restaurants everywhere as we can see in the picture, they have more probabilities to visit them more often which is something that raises the rate of obesity in this city. The article Reversing the Obesity in New York city, An Action Plan for Reducing the Promotion and Accessibility of Unhealthy Food mentions that:
“We use the term unhealthy food to describe products high in sugar, fat, or sodium (salt) and with few other essential nutrients. This includes packaged convenience foods, fast foods, soft drinks, and sweet and salty snacks. These foods make it easy to eat many more calories than we need, causing weight gain”. ( City University of New York campaign against diabetes public health Association of New York City)
as they clearly explain consuming junk food which is a kind of unhealthy food can make a person get weight easily, as more people consume them very often, it is wise to say that eating junk food in New York city is the main reason why many people ( adults and children) are becoming obese nowadays, That is why people should have a control over the food that they eat, they should be more aware of the quantity and the quality that those aliments have because even though not everybody knows obesity as a chronic disease, it is a reality that it is very dangerous to our health that is why we should avoid eating unhealthy food because as a result of doing that we can get this dangerous disease, also, the article mentions that as a result if having obesity we can get other illnesses such as hypertension, cancer, heart disease and more.

                       Obesity Will Have a Massive increase in The Future

If people continue consuming fast food restaurants so frequently as they use to do nowadays, is inevitable that New York city will have a massive increase in obesity and other illnesses in the future, In the article Fat and Getting Fatter: U.S. Obesity Rates to Soar by 2030 by Sharon Begley mentions that “If Americans stick to their eating and exercise habits, future historians will look back on the early 21st century as a golden age of svelte” (Routers). The article clearly depicts how a big part of our society is already affected by obesity and a big part of them are children. There are 35.7 percent adults and 16.9 percent of children that registered this year that have obesity, also, there are 7.9 million new cases of diabetes each year showing that if people do not change their bad habits when they eat by 2030 more than 42 percent of society can be obese and reports indicate that most of the people that have obesity have allow income and people with low income use to live in neighborhoods with no playgrounds or places where they can exercise so that they could not fight this disease and the rate of deaths can also increase.

                                                   Conclusion

New York is a big city in which we can find fast food restaurants everywhere and it just take some minutes to get to them, as many people with low income do not have the same possibilities of affording healthy food as other people with a higher income, they seemed forced to consume these fast food restaurants that are everywhere in this city. As a result of the consumption of junk food, it is reasonable to say that it is the main reason why many people ( adults and children) are getting obese nowadays and that means that means that those people have more probabilities to get other dangerous illnesses that can kill them if they do not take care of their situation and go for help before it is too late. Also, a big part of the future generation seems to be jeopardized if people do not change their eating habits. Personally, I have gone to these kind of restaurants with my family and I honestly can say that many of the food that they have is very high in fat which is something that we need in our body but if we abuse of it we can have serious health problem, that is why people should be more concerned about obesity and the damage that they are causing to their body when they consume junk food. Nowadays, it is needed to educate people about nutrition and what kind of food we cannot eat to much in order to maintain our body and organs healthy and to have a longer life. We need to have a control over the things that we eat because in that way we can stay healthy and we can prevent that many diseases come to our body making a terrible damaged to ourselves. And the most important thing to remember is that if we are going to visit fast food restaurants we should not go very often because that kind of food is not healthy at all so it is important to control the situation in order to maintain a good health and prevent many illnesses, but more important to make sure that our future generations will also have the opportunity to be healthy.

                                                  Articles

City University of New York Campaign against Diabetes Public Health Association of New York City, Reversing Obesity In New York City: An Action Plan for Reducing the Promotion and Accessibility of Unhealthy Food, 2008.

Carroll Linda, Fernstrom Madelyn, Cheap Food Blame for America’s Obesity Crisis, 2014.

Begley Sharon, Fad and Getting Fatter: U.S. Obesity Rates to Soar by 2030, 2012.

                                     Multimedia sources

https://images.app.goo.gl/3zhiVUhp8W6DxArs