Dr. Marci Mitchell
ENGL 1301
November 13, 2012 I-Search Paper: Obesity
I. What I know:
I know that obesity, in America is very common. In many cases it could be a huge problem, for someone’s health. Many people weigh more than they should, doctor’s call them overweight. When a person is extremely out of their weight limit, the condition is called obesity.
For instance, anyone who is about fifteen, or ten pounds heavier than, his or her weight, is considered overweight. People who are more than 30 or 40 pounds heavier than their weight, are considered obese. As child I was considered, obese. Whenever I had nothing to do, or was upset about something, I would always turn to food. In many cases, food was the answer to many of my problems. Obesity isn’t a medical condition, but diabetes is. Diabetes runs in my family, and
I was headed that way. I knew that I had a problem with over eating, but I didn’t know how to end my eating cycle. One of the hardest things to do when you are obese is to get on a diet, it was not easy, but I knew what was at risk if I were to continue my overeating problem. Now, I look back and see that having that over eating problem was a lesson learned. I never want to be put in that situation again, it is a horrible addiction, that many American’s are dealing with today.
II. Why I Chose This Topic: Obesity is a very important topic, I choose this topic because many people in today’s society are overweight and in many case’s at risk of death. Being over- weight can mean that you have a low self-esteem. When I was obese, I would always bring myself down, and always thought of myself as nothing, I didn’t think that I was beautiful, I always thought negative thoughts, I was a big bully to myself. One day out of the blue I wasn’t feeling so well, I remember that I had trouble peeing, and my eye sight wasn’t so well. My mother toke me to the doctor, and that’s when I found out that I was at risk of being a diabetic. At that moment I didn’t know what it meant but, as soon as the doctor started to explain it, I knew that I had to make a change. I believe this topic is very important, many people don’t know the risk’s they are putting on them self’s when they over-eat. For me, it was a life changing experience, if I were to have continued over eating I would have been on meds, and probably visiting the doctor more than twice a month for shots. I changed myself completely, physically and mentally, instead of thinking negative all the time, I motivate myself. And now I don’t bring myself down, I bring others up. It’s always good to stay positive in this situation, because in the end, you are all you’ve got. III. The Search
While I started researching, I found that many of the problems that I was going through while
I was obese were totally normal, but I also learned that I was at huge risk of many horrible
Illnesses. I have found that there were plenty more health risks involved, in being overweight or
obese. There was plenty of interesting books about obesity, I went to a public library and found a couple of them. As I read though some books, I found out a whole lot of interesting things.
Author/law professor Paul Campos, makes a very good case against the American diet industry,
“There are several causes for obesity in America, including fast-food restaurants and their marketing, hereditary obesity, and people reacting to the stereotypes in the media that you must be beautiful to be accepted” (Campos iv) There were many sources about this topic and I have seen many different point of views and out looks about this topic. I searched obesity in the U.S and saw that there was so many articles to choose from. Searching for the right facts,