Who is responsible for the problem of obesity in our society?

By Hassan Al-Momani
Western Herald

Obesity can be described as the condition of accumulating too much body fat in a way that is detrimental to one’s health. There was a lot of research on this problem conducted in the United States in order to identify the reasons for the problem and the procedures that should be taken into account to overcome the dangerous effects of it. A primary influence of obesity in American youth is the negative role of mass media marketing junk food to kids.

Media has an important role in influencing people’s attitudes and opinions towards a lot of issues in life. Based on the importance of advertising information and the influence it exudes in public minds and opinions, we have to say that advertising is the major reason behind the problem of obesity nowadays. In general, people tend to buy the food that is highly advertised by companies so they are in a way dependant on the advertisements in their choices.

Junk food is advertised in an attractive way that motivates us to eat it, while at the same time disregarding the dangers to our health.

Many advertising companies target children to eat this unhealthy kind of food. They design a lot of methods to entice children to eat junk food. For example, they try to stick a lot of advertisements on the entrances of some shopping centers that are frequently visited by children and their parents.

Advertisers also put a lot of junk food in specially selected places in shopping centers. For example, if you go shopping in big stores you will find that the first place you will look at is the junk food placed at the entrance of the store.

You’ll also find that when you want to pay for your purchases a lot of junk food is placed at the checkout, enticing children to beg.

The solutions to the obesity problem in society should be based on our understanding of the negative role of advertisements on our children. Parents should explain to their children about the harms and dangerous effects of junk food to their health. The parents’ efforts to prevent obesity in their children must be supported by the physicians’ efforts, which must be to explain the devastating effects of junk food on our health. Physicians have to talk to people in the mass media about the dangerous results of eating fat food.

Educational institutions can play an important role in warning the students about the dangerous health problems caused by junk food through organizing workshops, conferences, and seminars in order to arm the students with the knowledge and awareness.

Also, universities should ensure that unhealthy foods are not made as readily available on campus

The government plays a very important role in educating consumers about and protecting them from certain foods. Government agencies should make legislation that bans the advertisers of junk food from advertising their food. There should be fines in place for the companies that violate these laws.

Also, parents should change the eating routines for their kids by focusing on buying vegetables and fruit and avoiding junk food. They should make their children watch the health programs on televisions in order to know the dangers of junk food.

Finally, I think that advertising junk food for people, especially children, is economically harmful for society because it will cause a lot of cardiac problems for the people that lead to illness or death. Thus, the role of media must be positive and efficient in directing people to stop eating junk food.

Hassan Al-Momani, a Western Herald opinion columnist, is a graduate student majoring in English and can be reached via e-mail at hassan76us@yahoo.com.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=6110

Posted by HeraldAdmin on May 21 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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