The Obesity Crisis: Causes and Solutions
Since the 1980s, the prevalence of obesity in the United States has increased dramatically. Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show rising obesity across the nation, state-by-state.
Each year since 1990, the CDC has published maps of the United States in which states are color-coded based on the percentage of their population estimated to be obese. The maps show a clear increase in the prevalence of obesity between 1990 and 2010. The methods used by the CDC to collect the data changed in 2011, so we can’t make direct comparisons between the periods before and after that change, but the trend has continued. Every year, more and more people in the U.S. are obese.
The prevalence of obesity among U.S. adults has continued to rise between 2011 and 2018.
These trends are unmistakable, and they’re not just occurring in adults. Childhood obesity has seen similar increases over the last few decades—perhaps an even greater concern as the metabolic and health effects of carrying too much weight can be compounded over a person’s entire lifetime.
Between 1999 and 2016, the prevalence of obesity in both children and adults has risen steadily.
Table Data for this graph is available in the Appendix.
While obesity is a problem across the United States, it affects some groups of people more than others. Based on 2015-2016 data, obesity rates are higher among Hispanic (47 percent) and Black adults (47 percent) compared with white adults (38 percent). Non-Hispanic Asians have the lowest obesity rate (13 percent). And overall, people who are college-educated and have a higher income are less likely to be obese. This health disparities point to the importance of looking at social context when examining causes and solutions. Not everyone has the same opportunity for good health, or an equal ability to make changes to their circumstances, because of factors like poverty and longstanding inequities in how resources are invested in communities. These factors are called “social determinants of health.”
The obesity epidemic is also not unique to the United States. Obesity is rising around the globe, and in 2015, it was estimated to affect 2 billion people worldwide, making it one of the largest factors affecting poor health in most countries. Globally, among children aged 5 to 19 years old, the rate of overweight increased from 10.3 percent in 2000 to 18.4 percent in 2018. Previously, overweight and obesity mainly affected high-income countries, but some of the most dramatic increases in childhood overweight over the last decade have been in low income countries, such as those in Africa and South Asia, corresponding to a greater availability of inexpensive, processed foods.
Despite the gravity of the problem, no country has yet been able to implement policies that have reversed the trend and brought about a decrease in obesity. This represents “one of the biggest population health failures of our time,” wrote an international group of researchers in the journal The Lancet in 2019. The World Health Organization has set a target of stopping the rise of obesity by 2025. Doing so requires understanding what is causing the obesity epidemic; it is only when these causes are addressed that change can start to occur.
Causes of the Obesity Epidemic
If obesity was an infectious disease sweeping the globe, affecting billions of people’s health, longevity, and productivity, we surely would have addressed it by now. Researchers and pharmaceutical companies would have worked furiously to develop vaccines and medicines to prevent and cure this disease. But the causes of obesity are much more complex than a single bacteria or virus, and solving this problem means recognizing and addressing a multitude of factors that lead to weight gain in a population.
Behavior
At its core, rising obesity is caused by a chronic shift towards positive energy balance—consuming more energy or calories than one expends each day, leading to an often gradual but persistent increase in body weight. People often assume that this is an individual problem, that those who weigh more simply need to change their behavior to eat less and exercise more, and if this doesn’t work, it must be because of a personal failing, such as a lack of self-control or motivation. While behavior patterns such as diet and exercise can certainly impact a person’s risk of developing obesity (as we’ll cover later in this chapter), the environments where we live also have a big impact on our behavior and can make it much harder to maintain energy balance.
Environment
Many of us live in what researchers and public health experts call “obesogenic environments.” That is, the ways in which our neighborhoods are built and our lives are structured influence our physical activity and food intake to encourage weight gain. Human physiology and metabolism evolved in a world where obtaining enough food for survival required significant energy investment in hunting or gathering—very different from today’s world where more people earn their living in sedentary occupations. From household chores, to workplace productivity, to daily transportation, getting things done requires fewer calories than it did in past generations.
Some elements of our environment that may make it easier to gain weight include sedentary jobs, easy access to inexpensive calories, and cities built more for car travel than for physical activity. Our jobs have become more and more sedentary, with fewer opportunities for non-exercise thermogenesis (NEAT) throughout the day. There’s less time in the school day for recess and physical activity, and fears about neighborhood safety limit kids’ ability to get out and play after the school day is over. Our towns and cities are built more for cars than for walking or biking. We can’t turn back the clock on human progress, and finding a way to stay healthy in obesogenic environments is a significant challenge.
Our environments can also impact our food choices. We’re surrounded by vending machines, fast food restaurants, coffee shops, and convenience stores that offer quick and inexpensive access to calories. These foods are also heavily advertised, and especially when people are stretched thin by working long hours or multiple jobs, they can be a welcome convenience. However, they tend to be calorie-dense (and less nutrient-dense) and more heavily processed, with amounts of sugar, fat, and salt optimized to make us want to eat more, compared with home-cooked food. In addition, portion sizes at restaurants, especially fast food chains, have increased over the decades, and people are eating at restaurants more and cooking at home less.
Poverty and Food Insecurity
Living in poverty usually means living in a more obesogenic environment. Consider the fact that some of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States—with some of the highest rates of obesity—are often not safe or pleasant places to walk, play, or exercise. They may have busy traffic and polluted air, and they may lack sidewalks, green spaces, and playgrounds. A person living in this type of neighborhood will find it much more challenging to get adequate physical activity compared with someone living in a neighborhood where it’s safe to walk to school or work, play at a park, ride a bike, or go for a run.
In addition, poor neighborhoods often lack a grocery store where people can purchase fresh fruits and vegetables and basic ingredients necessary for cooking at home. Such areas are called “food deserts”—where healthy foods simply aren’t available or easily accessible.
Another concept useful in discussions of obesity risk is “food insecurity.” Food security means “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.” Food insecurity means an inability to consistently obtain adequate food. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in the United States, food insecurity is linked to obesity. That is, people who have difficulty obtaining enough food are more likely to become obese and to suffer from diabetes and hypertension. This is likely related to the fact that inexpensive foods tend to be high in calories but low in nutrients, and when these foods form the foundation of a person’s diet, they can cause both obesity and nutrient deficiencies. It’s estimated that 12 percent of U.S. households are food insecure, and food insecurity is higher among Black (22 percent) and Latino (18 percent) households.
Test Your Understanding
Genetics
What about genetics? While it’s true that our genes can influence our susceptibility to becoming obese, researchers say they can’t be a cause of the obesity epidemic. Genes take many generations to evolve, and the obesity epidemic has occurred over just the last 40 to 50 years—only a few generations. When our grandparents were children, they were much less likely to become obese than our own children. That’s not because their genes were different, but rather because they grew up in a different environment. However, it is true that a person’s genes can influence their susceptibility to becoming obese in this obesogenic environment, and obesity is more prevalent in some families. A person’s genetic makeup can make it more difficult to maintain energy balance in an obesogenic environment, because certain genes may make you feel more hungry or slow your energy expenditure.
Solutions to the Obesity Epidemic
Given the multiple causes of obesity, solving this problem will also require many solutions at different levels. Because obesity affects people over the lifespan and is difficult to reverse, the focus of many of these efforts is prevention, starting as early as the first years of life. We’ll discuss individual weight management strategies later in this chapter. Here, we’ll review some strategies happening in schools, communities, and at the state and federal levels.
Support Healthy Dietary Patterns
Interventions that support healthy dietary patterns, especially among people more vulnerable because of food insecurity or poverty, may reduce obesity. In some cases, studies have shown that they have an impact, and in other cases, it’s too soon to know. Here are some examples:
Implement and support better nutrition standards for childcare, schools, hospitals, and worksites.
Limit marketing of processed foods, especially ads targeted toward children.
Provide incentives for supermarkets or farmers’ markets to establish businesses in underserved areas.
Farmers’ markets can expand healthy food options for neighborhoods and build connections between consumers and local farmers.
Place nutrition and calorie content on restaurant and fast food menus to raise awareness of food choices. Beginning in 2018, as part of the Affordable Care Act, chain restaurants with more than 20 locations were required to add calorie information to their menus, and some had already done so voluntarily. There isn’t yet enough research to say whether having this information improves customers’ choices; some studies show an effect and others don’t. Many factors influence people’s decisions, and the type of restaurant, customer needs, and menu presentation all likely matter. For example, some studies show that health-conscious consumers choose lower-calorie menu items when presented with nutrition information, but people with food insecurity may understandably choose higher-calorie items to get more “bang for their buck”. Research has also shown that adding interpretative images—like a stoplight image labeling menu choices as green or red as shorthand for high or low nutrient density—can help. And a 2018 study found that when calorie counts are on the left side of English-language menus, people order lower-calorie menu items. Putting calorie counts on the right side of the menu (as is more common) doesn’t have this effect, likely because the English language is read from left to right. Some studies have also found that restaurants that implement menu labeling offer lower-calorie and more nutrient-dense options, indicating that menu labeling may push restaurants to look more closely at the food they serve.
Pause to Reflect
Obesity in the United States and worldwide has increased dramatically. Why? Many thinkers have tried to explain this using limited, problematic reasoning. Here is what one of my students initially wrote about the causes of obesity:
“People with limited income resort to buying cheap canned goods instead of buying fresh fruits and vegetables. Cheap products contain many sugars and preservatives that the body does not benefit from because they do not contain vitamins and minerals, but only contain preservatives and calories. Because these foodstuffs are cheap, people buy large quantities and consume them massively. This is what exposes them to obesity. People should be aware of the importance of nutrition for our health. Before they eat anything, they should read what it contains. The person should have information about the dangers of preservatives, sugars and fats to our health.”
Notice that this explanation places the responsibility for obesity on the individuals themselves–they lack knowledge about healthy food and make poor choices that lead to their bodies being unhealthy, “obese.” Here is what Alice Callahan writes:
“People who are college-educated and have a higher income are less likely to be obese. These health disparities point to the importance of looking at social context when examining causes and solutions. Not everyone has the same opportunity for good health or an equal ability to make changes to their circumstances.”
What is the difference between these two explanations? One of them points to individuals’ choices as the cause of obesity, and the other points to the way society is set up. One is a general reflection, and the other uses evidence. College-level writers are developing the skill of shifting from personal, reflective statements (opinion) to critical, reasoned arguments (analysis) using evidence. The prompts below are meant to guide you through the process of using the OER textbook in order to make clearly stated, sound, evidence-based claims about the obesity crisis.
What Are the Cultural Implications of how We Discuss Health, Fitness, and “The Obesity Crisis”? How Can We Responsibly Study Evidence to Form a Claim?
If you were writing a 5-page research paper in which you made an argument about the causes and effects of media reporting on and medical representations of “the obesity crisis,” you would want to define a research topic and then gather evidence. As academic writers, you are taking a position in a debate, and you need to have artifacts (like Exhibit A, Exhibit B, etc. in a trial) to point to as proof that your ideas are sound. What you want to avoid is an attempt at a thesis statement that is more like a description (“Obesity is a big problem in America” or a personal feeling about the issue (“It’s sad that so many Americans have unhealthy lifestyles”).
Here’s an example of a research question I pose to students in an in-class activity to practice building the skill of narrowing a topic and framing a thesis statement:
Is Goop participating in toxic fitness culture? Why or why not?
- Draft a thesis and have at least two specific examples/evidence of your claim.
Here are the observations my class made after spending ten minutes brainstorming what they noticed:
- Group 1 : Yes, Goop is participating in toxic fitness. It is participating in a toxic fitness culture due to the fact that it’s all very white and thin and young. All the models look the same with maybe one black woman every other page, they’re hairless, they don’t have wrinkles or cellulite. The titles on the articles talk down on looking old and having features we equate with age. It’s all very young-centric, but in a negative way, ageist. The repeated images of skinny white women excludes many other bodies and groups of people and sends the notion that there is one way to look healthy. Not everyone has the funds. Goop is focused on a certain group of people because as we can see they don’t have sizes for all people when it comes to their clothing. It focuses more on a very rich white skinny female demographic.
- Group 2: I would say yes because its obviously catered to white upper class fit people but mostly woman because the things they are selling cost an arm and a leg. With each article showing skinny fit white women with increments of people of color but it never shows any people who are overweight who are trying to be fit.
- Group 3: Goop is participating in a toxic fitness culture. All of the items are too expensive for the ordinary person to buy. Ordinary people are an exclusion from the fitness culture that goop participates in because items are overpriced. In addition, most of the people on the website are individuals who are skinny rather than obese. Goop does not include a variety of different shapes of bodies. It seems that the only goal of goop is to promote their expensive products for more privileged people rather than promote healthy choices and products for others.
- Group 4: They promote toxic fitness culture by telling you what to eat and how to eat. Reducing carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in each meal will help slow down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream. They also promote and sell high end expensive clothing to work out in. Showing all the models who are by most standards to be perfect working out in it. So then people who are just starting to workout see someone wearing something that they look good in iit discourages them from wearing something similar.
- Group 5: Yes goop does contribute to toxic fitness culture. They use false advertising to trick people into trusting them, they lie about if their products are ethically sourced, get products from dangerous mines for workers, they advertise their products and workouts to very rich people who can already afford help from doctors and do not need the things they sell which makes their website inaccessible to people that don’t have that kind of money. They don’t allow reviews on their website so to find if their products really work you have to find what people are saying from other places.
Which of these groups was the most successful in identifying a clear thesis statement with supporting details from the text as evidence? Go through each group’s response and pick out: #1) the claim and #2) which details are being used as evidence of the claim. Once you’ve done this, you should notice that the strongest evidence is the most direct and detailed. Generalizing about “the way things are” on the website is less successful in persuading an audience of your point than presenting specific, direct evidence.
Key Takeaways
To review, the process of thesis formation should start with making a list of the things you noticed: what stood out to you? What did you notice about the source/images? It’s not that you can’t write descriptively or about your feelings, but rather that if you write a description or about your feelings, you’ll need to take that observation and go one step further, answering the question, “What is the point of that?”
Here’s an example of this process of writing a thesis statement thesis statement by starting with an observation, turning your observation into a question, and then making a statement about the consequences of what you’ve observed:
- Observation: All the people on goop are women
- Question based on observation: What is the consequence of this representation? Change the question into a statement about consequences: The fact that most people on Goop are women perhaps simply reflects the brand’s readership but ultimately has negative consequences for fitness culture.
- Agree, disagree, or something in between (sample thesis statement): In primarily representing women, Goop perpetuates the sexist belief that fitness is a female pursuit.
Here’s a sample paragraph using these students’ ideas and evidence from the source. First I start with my thesis, that Goop perpetuates toxic fitness culture. I have a main idea (one way the thesis is true), an example/quote as evidence, and an explanation.
“One way Goop is exclusionary is in recommending services only the wealthy could afford. The website reads, “The utility of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has advanced way beyond decompression illness (when scuba divers come to the surface too rapidly). Facilities are springing up around the world, and they’re being used to treat a wide range of complaints…Medical HBOT is expensive unless your health insurance covers it, to say nothing of being stuck in a claustrophobia-inducing chamber for hours every day…” This is important because wellness is not only for the rich, those who can afford out-of-pocket healthcare expenses and those who have hours every day to spend on such treatments. If it’s true that only the elite in society can access these promoted procedures, then Goop demonstrates that health is something the poor cannot afford.”
Now that we’ve practiced how to form thesis statements, now it’s time to practice choosing evidence to support our claims.
Examining Argumentation and Evidence
Read through this student paper and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence she uses to support her thesis. Where does the argument falter because of a problematic choice of quotes/examples? Where is more specific or direct evidence required in order to convince the reader that the thesis is sound?
“Anonymous
Prof. Gilleman
ENG 101
6 May 2021
Noom Compared to Other Weight Loss Programs
Is Noom really any different from Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or any of these other weight loss programs? These programs are all effective for weight loss, although they take slightly different approaches. Noom utilizes a color-coding system, while Weight Watchers and other programs use a points system to help steer one toward foods that are lower in calories and more nutritious. All these programs promote how they can help you los e weight in a certain period of time. Noom seems to be more of a holistic wellness program but is actually a typical diet plan. Noom emphasizes weight loss and not just health.
Even though Noom has a comprehensive wellness plan with food, exercise and mental health aspects built in, at the end of the day the goal is for its users to spend money on the program to ‘lose weight’ Apostrophes? and keep it “long-term”. It even gives an estimate of how much one will weigh by a certain month just by answering some questions. Not to mention how expensive it is to join it with a price of $150 that users have to pay upfront. And this program might not work for everyone so one could be wasting money unnecessarily on this app. While Noom could help modify behaviors it could get exhausting as users have to keep track of a lot of things and not everyone has time to do so. Noom is not safe for people recovering from an eating disorder. The app encourages calorie tracking and uses a lot of weight-loss oriented language and messaging, like “fat burn” and “lose weight.” And before Before starting any new diet, it’s important to remember that one should always consult with a physician. Nutrition is not something that works for everyone, and there may be a number of reasons why a particular diet or eating plan may not be a good fit for everyone.
Noom’s ads lack diversity in representation as it’s mostly white people and everyone in the ads has what we would call ‘normal’ bodies. It looks like these people are healthy and most of them look like they’re paid actors. Watching the ads, there were only around two or three people of color and the rest were white. In some reviews customers left and uploaded on YouTube, most said Noom helped them lose weight and feel more in control, others said they had a bad experience with Noom and even with some coaches in the program. Lack of diversity is a problem that a lot of places have and wouldn’t be assumed a problem that a weight loss program would have. While watching the ads on YouTube this looks like a program for the “white rich ladies”. If they had put more people of color and made their ads seem more real and not forced, anyone watching these ads would believe this was a genuine program with diversity.
It is disappointing that, despite Noom’s claims for life-long weight loss, their study only follows people for a year. Many people initially lose weight on a diet plan only to regain the weight long-term. When it comes to weight loss research, the question is not how are people doing at 6 to 12 months, but how are people doing at two years, five years, and more. This is the data needed to support claims like the ones that Noom makes about losing weight for life. Yet, despite having studies running from as far back as 2012, they have published no studies with follow-up for more than a year. Think about it: if users start a program, use it for a while, and it doesn’t work, what would they do? Would they continue paying each month for a service that isn’t delivering on its promises? No, if they are like most people, they would stop the program. And that is exactly what over 99% of Noom users did. While actively using the app, over 30% of these users lost less than 5% of their weight. About 24% of users lost 10% of their weight and 22% lost more than 20%. That’s what happened in the short term, when participants were consistently engaging with the app. The study concludes that 77% of app users lost weight while using the app and this is the statistic used widely in the Noom promotional materials. It sounds better than 86% of users failing their program within a year. Or 99% of people who couldn’t stick with our plan for six months.
As one decides whether this is a good diet plan, It’s an important shortcoming it’s important to understand that Noom coaches are not required to be registered dietitians or to complete a formal nutrition degree. Experts do not think Noom’s health coaches have the necessary training to advise people on diet and nutrition. The cost of Noom can be prohibitive for some people, too. With Noom, one is given a suggested plan and has to pay for those months upfront. A monthly plan is priced at $59 or there is also an annual membership for $199. As stated before, this diet plan seems a little overpriced and the fact that not a lot of people who have used it have had any ‘success’ stories is not very convincing. Why would a weight loss/ dieting plan that has been ‘hyped up’ not have many ‘success’ stories? And why would they make it a plan that is so overpriced? Perhaps they were aiming for people who could afford it but as the data and statistics show, that failed.
While Noom is an app that worksthat it works great for most, of course, there are those who haven’t had a positive experience. Some of the top negative comments reported were that the cancellation process seemed to be an issue for a few users: “Noom is like a subscription that automatically renews and you can never cancel. You will get to a point where you want to do it on your own and could but they won’t let you.”quote only relates to what they said before not after Noom actually followed up on this comment and had their support team personally reach out to this customer, so hopefully, their problems were resolved. The fact that they reached out to these customers is important because if they do not the users leaving these reviews may influence other users or future users to delete or not download the app. Could have talked more about other experiences people have had using the app rather than one problem, under developed paragraph
Another customer said the app wasn’t any different than tracking calories. “This is just counting calories with an expensive coach.” Anyone can lose 1400 calories/day, but don’t believe it’s a sustainable strategy. Also, the app loses info constantly requiring duplicate entries of every ingredient of every meal.” Again, they responded to this complaint and were going to have their customer support team reach out to patch things up. These are some of the complaints users have had. , which are pretty serious Cconsidering the fact that Noom is a well-known app and a lot of people recommend it, its a very serious problem.. As many other companies, they probably reached out to these users because they posted their problems with the app online.
There probably have been other users that haven’t liked certain things about the app but don’t post it online or hurt the company.
Noom doesn’t work for petite people as the survey doesn’t offer as an option the goal of gaining weight. Individuals who weigh under 100 pounds cannot enter their body weight in Noom. If a petite person were to try this app it would not work for them as they would want to gain weight but all the app does is tell you how to lose it and if they are under a hundred pounds the app doesn’t let them put their actual weight in. It’s a diet app, but it could gain more popularity and gain more users if they include a feature that helps users struggling with weight gain as well. To me, It’s very unrealistic how they give an exact month and the exact weight users will be in. Maybe that’s their strategy to attract users to download the app. Even while doing research on this matter, one gets Noom ads nonstop. It seems that they’re really passionate about getting users to download and use their app. Still, the way they have their app set up is very unrealistic because not everyone has the time to do everything they recommend. Some people struggle with mental health, financially, etc. The fact that there was a customer that complained about “not being able to cancel her subscription because they basically wouldn’t let her should be enough to tell that most of these programs and companies want the users money and are not very interested in actually helping the customer. Paragraph was to long and not clear.
Many users complain that the coaching is inconsistent should of quoted it (and some say practically non-existent) and that the responses feel canned. Users also complain that the database lacks many foods, is unreliable, and that tracking food on this plan is a big pain. That’s a big drawback given that tracking is integral to this program’s success (use a quote from the research)(according to the research). There are also a notable number of complaints about canceling the program. Some critics say that given the obesity epidemic, it’s not unhealthy to have weight loss in itself as a goal because the risk of dying of cardiac issues, diabetes or cancer is real for people who are overweight. And while these conditions are a problem for people who are overweight,it doesn’t seem that any of the weight loss programs or diet programs like Noom are the methods these people should use while trying to lose weight. They should go to a professional who can recommend them different diets or methods they can adapt to slowly and at their own pace tobe able to reach their weight loss goals. None of these weight loss and dieting programs should be recommended for people struggling with weight loss. or people with an eating disorder.It’s true that all Noom health coaches are approved by the National Consortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches (NCCHWC) and that Noom’s health coach training platform, “Noomiversity,” is approved by the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaches (NBHWC). However, that doesn’t mean all of their coaches are certified nutritionists, registered dietitians, personal trainers, doctors, or any other credentialed health professional outside of Noom’s independent training program.
Another disadvantage of Noom health & weight loss app is its dependency on the internet. To be able to connect with the health program, users have to have a hi-speed internet connection somehow. The most crucial part is its tracking and analysis methods which rely on internet services. This application is available and accessible on devices that support internet connectivity like smartphones and tablets. At times, users may run out of Wifi hotspot or cellular data which is also another flipside of this health and weight loss app. Another problem is, Noom is entirely virtual. This app delivers and tracks all Delivering and tracking all users schedules online through an automated system., Noom this app may make its users feel somewhat uncomfortable and dubious. For some of the users, meeting face-to-face with their personal coach feels more convenient. Since Noom offers a virtual support team to sort your health and weight issues, the entire conversation occurring between the coaches and users is online or more like virtual. Tracking is also cumbersome. Many users have reported about Noom’s tracking method which ultimately has turned out to be full of stress.
To summarize, Noom and these other weight loss and dieting programs are just alike. These companies promise their users they will lose weight by using unrealistic measures on their apps to attract more people to download and waste their money and time on their app. Even though Noom does have a comprehensive wellness plan with food, exercise and mental health aspects built in, it’s not designed for petite people as it doesn’t have options for them and at the end of the day their goal is for users to spend their money on the program to ‘lose weight’ and keep it “for a long time”. Noom is not safe for people recovering from an eating disorder as it encourages calorie tracking and uses a lot of weight-loss oriented language, like “fat burn” and “weight loss.” If your goal is weight loss, remember that losing weight isn’t necessarily the same as being your healthiest self, and there are many other ways to pursue health. Exercise, sleep, and other lifestyle factors also play a major role in your overall health. The best diet is always the one that is balanced and fits your lifestyle.
Works Cited:
Ayala, Megan. “2021 Noom Reviews: Diet App Cost, Pros and Cons.” Patriciaandcarolyn.Com, 14 Apr. 2021,https://patriciaandcarolyn.com/best-diet/noom/ Accessed 4 June 2021 Cassetty, Samantha. “4 Best Diet Programs for Weight Loss.” Today.Com, 8 Jan. 2021,
https://www.today.com/health/4-best-diet-programs-weight-loss-2021-today-t205372 Accessed 10 May, 2021.
Kriestch, Beth. “Complete Guide to the Noom Diet.” Byrdie.Com, 7 Oct. 2020, https://www.byrdie.com/noom-diet-5077997 Accessed 6 May 2021.”
Answer these questions about this student paper:
- The thesis, in ten or fewer words, seems to be….
Is the thesis clear? Arguable? Interesting? Too broad or narrow?
- The paper addresses these general points to support the thesis:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Place holder
Writing
Structuring a Paragraph
Once you have a clearly defined thesis statement and supporting evidence, you need to begin developing paragraphs. Imagine that your research premise is: “Detox is not a legitmate health practice.”
Identify the parts of this soundly composed paragraph arguing this claim through evidence:
Detox diets are not healthy in part because they are not sustainable. Critic X writes, “Much of the weight loss achieved through this diet results from fluid loss related to extremely low carbohydrate intake and frequent bowel movements or diarrhea produced by salt water and laxative tea. When the dieter resumes normal fluid intake, this weight is quickly regained.” This shows that a diet is not sustainable because its effects are short-term if they rely on dehydrating the body. Hydration is essential to health and a diet that deprives the body of fluid is dangerous. Frequent bowel movements can be dangerous, so this practice is actually unhealthy.
Every well-composed body paragraph needs a main idea, a quote, and a critical reaction to the quote. This means that, as the nucleus of the paragraph, you will need to start your paragraph-writing process with a quote. When you draft your essay, it makes sense to make a list of the quotes you’ll use as the core of each of your body paragraphs.Here is a list of quotes one student assembled in support of her thesis. This is an outline of her essay, and she is now ready to start building paragraphs by reacting to evidence:
THESIS: Obesity is produced by impoverished lifestyles and worsened by prejudice both in society and the medical community.
Quotes:
“cultural assumptions about body weight and health are often based on false, contested, or incomplete scientific ideas. [They’re] myths such as the idea that weight is under individual control, or that body mass index (BMI) is an accurate measure of weight status” (Stanford).
“Being the target of weight bias and discrimination can lead to numerous adverse health consequences affecting psychological, social, and physical health. Individuals who experience weight stigma have an increased risk for depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, poor body image, substance abuse, and suicidality” (Puhl).
“It seems that everywhere you turn these days, whether it’s reality shows, movies, YouTube, television ads or news reports, a person with obesity is being ridiculed…This phenomenon even earned the unwelcome label “fattertainment” – media that is both immensely popular and a breeding ground for obesity stereotypes” (Heuer).
“Around 53% of women with obesity report hearing inappropriate comments about their weight from healthcare professionals [and] 52% of women say that their weight has been a barrier to receiving appropriate healthcare. Concerns about weight are also associated with delaying or avoiding preventative care” (Villines).
“Studies have consistently shown that physicians associate obesity with such negative attributes as poor hygiene, nonadherence, hostility, and dishonesty…They have less respect for patients with obesity” (Durkin).
“The prevalence of weight bias in medicine may stem…from minimal education about obesity in undergraduate and graduate medical education. And there is even less education about weight bias and stigma and its impact on the health of individuals who struggle with obesity” (Stanford).
If you get stuck when you are locating sources/evidence to support your claim, keep in mind that constructing an argument amounts to agreeing or disagreeing with another critic and that presenting evidence to support your claim amounts to reacting to another critic’s examples.
Here is a research activity students can do individually or in groups.
- Scan through your article and identify the main idea.
- Form your own possible thesis in relation to this author’s position in the debate. 3. Choose a quote from the article (2-3 sentences) that supports your thesis.
GROUP ONE “The Dubious Practice of Detox.” Harvard Health Publishing, 1 May 2008, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-dubious-practice-of-detox. 7 Nov. 2022.
GROUP TWO Weiss, Suzannah. “Weight Watchers Is Offering Teens Free Memberships and People Aren’t Happy.” Teen Vogue, 12 Feb. 2018, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/weight-watchers-teens. 7 Nov. 2022.
Sometimes as a writer, you will notice that you’ve been able to assemble evidence and discussion of that evidence in support of your claim, but you might still be struggling with identifying supporting ideas. In the following two paragraphs, the student has chosen to work with the thesis statement, “Obesity is often a byproduct of poverty.”
What is the one way each paragraph shows the thesis to be true?
Alice Callahan writes, “people who have difficulty obtaining enough food are more likely to become obese and to suffer from diabetes and hypertension. This is likely related to the fact that inexpensive foods tend to be high in calories but low in nutrients… 12 percent of U.S.households are food insecure, and food insecurity is higher among Black (22 percent) and Latino (18 percent) households.” This quote shows the link between poverty and obesity. Where financially stable people are able to access fresh produce and nutrient rich food in expensive grocery stores, their poor counterparts may only have access to food at the convenience store down the street or their local McDonald’s. In marginalized communities who are especially prone to poverty this is even more prevalent. With discrimination and lack of opportunities, many people of color are not able to sustain jobs that can afford nutritional foods.”
“In children, weight-based bullying is one of the most frequent types of bullying experienced in school. Often, this type of teasing is a stressor children will face for years, throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Experiencing weight-based bullying often leads to coping through avoidance of physical activity and increased emotional or binge eating.” Even in the earliest years of a child’s life, they are facing social stigma for their weight. The description explains how shaming one for being overweight not only emotionally harms them, but causes eating disorders. Unasked for attention and teasing towards one’s weight will not help them to become “healthier”, it will only push them into unhealthy habits motivated by shame of their bodies.”
Keep in mind that no paragraph should start with a quote because that would be like starting a performance by handing the mic over to another performer. Your own voice should be front and center in the paragraph, and your topic sentences should state the one way that paragraph proves your thesis to be true. In the first paragraph above, one way to state the main idea would be to link the details in the paragraph (fast food, inexpensive, processed foods) to the thesis (about poverty and obesity): one way poverty causes obesity is by preventing people from having access to healthy food. In the second paragraph, the topic sentence should connect the details in the paragraph (stigma surrounding obesity) to the thesis statement (about obesity and poverty): another poverty-related cause of obesity is stigma around being overweight.
As you develop as a college writer, you will discover the importance of evaluating the link between your claims and your evidence.
Here are some reflection questions that were brainstormed by one student to help generate her thesis before she gathered evidence:
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- “What is the link between social media and obesity?”
- “How does brand advertising impact obesity?”
- “What is the result of unhealthy bodily expectations and constant exposure to aggressive advertisements for fast food?”
Here’s the thesis this student arrived at:
“Thesis: Society views obesity as a pandemic while both encouraging and discouraging it through social media, brand advertising, Hollywood, and medical research.”
In these body paragraphs, let’s evaluate the link between the evidence the student chose to work with and her thesis:
“Despite trying to not offend people who are obese, people talk about obesity in numerous scenarios, one of which is socially. Diana Gonzalez-Castillo writes, “We are discussing their lifestyles — how people gain weight, why being overweight isn’t healthy… Meanwhile, in our society it is basically a crime to point out a person’s weight to them: “So, how’s that diet going?” “Oh, you got fat!” “I have these weight loss cookbooks for you!” Saying such things to a person’s face (depending of the context) can be rude and hurtful.” What this means is that people can be self cautious as to how they appear publicly, and pointing out these insecurities is rude and hurtful. Many people when talking about obesity conclude that it is caused by the person’s lifestyle. Though lifestyle is a cause, it is not the only one.”
“The discussion of obesity is a troubling topic to talk about and it makes people uncomfortable. However despite the uncomfortableness that comes with the topic some groups of people, mainly youths, make fun of and joke about obesity. Diana Gonzalez-Castillo quotes, “I don’t know if it’s just me, but every time the topic of obesity comes up in a class discussion or a casual conversation, I feel slightly uncomfortable. I’m not overweight or obese, but I get concerned about the feelings of those who are. We say things like, “these people are slowly killing themselves,” and “there are no excuses.” We stifle our giggles when the professor displays a picture of an extremely obese kid grabbing a french fry. In America, there is at least one person in a family, friend group or classroom who is obese.” Some people, when talking about obesity become uncomfortable, even if they are not obese themselves. Despite being uncomfortable with obesity, people find hilarity in making fun of imaging and conversations on the subject. People talk about how being obese is bad for a persons health and they have no excuses.”
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What do you notice about the evidence this student has chosen to work with?
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What do her quotes have in common?
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What makes evidence “good” or “strong” as support of a claim?
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What you should notice in this student’s paragraphs is that the use of conversational/anecdotal evidence or general evidence about “the way things are” in society is not very convincing because it is too general. Ask yourself if an attorney would use your evidence in a trial to support their argument. There should be an airtight bond between your thesis and your evidence: it should be logically undeniable.
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Media Attributions
- Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults 1990, 2000, and 2010 © CDC is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Prevalence of self-reported obesity among U.S. adults by state and territory, BRFSS 2018 © CDC is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Increase in rates of obesity in the U.S. over the past 30 years © NCHS - CDC is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Office meeting © Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com via. Unsplash is licensed under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license
- Vending machines © Photo by Kenny Eliason via. Unsplash is licensed under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license
- Rush hour traffic © Photo by Aleksandr Popov via. Unsplash is licensed under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license
- Farmers market © Graphic Node via. Unsplash is licensed under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license
