Obesity in America interests me because I am shocked at the amount of people that allow themselves to become so overweight.  The high rates of obesity, the prevalence of it in our society today, and the minimal effort to stop it concerns many medical professionals.  With all the access to information about how bad it is for our bodies to be so heavy, I do not understand why obesity is not considered a larger issue.  This research question does not personally affect me and my values but it has affected some of my family members.  My grandfather's doctor told him he had to lose at least 30 pounds if he wanted to live another year, which is when my family came to realize that being overweight is a dire issue.  After this first semester in college I was able to understand how easy it is to gain weight and became much more aware of my own body, which makes me question how others and society as a whole do not see what they are doing to their health.  I am qualified to write on the topic of obesity being socially acceptable because of the research I have done before this project because of my grandfather's issue and the research I will continue to do for this project. 

The first form of evidence I have found is a picture graph displaying the rates of obesity in the individual states across America from 2000 and the rates in 2010.  By looking at the picture it is very apparent that the rates of obesity have sky rocketed in just a decade.  This picture chart shows the higher rates of obesity in red, pointing to the severity of this issue.  Nearly all 50 states are red.  The source for this photograph is the UXL Encyclopedia of Science which provides facts about the world of science in nontechnical terms.  The author of the Encyclopedia, Amy Hackney Blackwell, has a Ph.D. in Plant and Environmental Science and is a published scholarly author for Gale Cengage.  Gale Cengage is an online database that publishes for academic libraries and businesses, so their facts are reliable. As for the authors biases, none seem to be apparent in the picture graph or based on her personal history.  However, I think that Blackwell agrees obesity should be a serious concern based on her publication of the alarming picture graph. 

The second source of evidence is an article published in The Washington Post, Fat Kids Don't Know They're Fat Anymore. The article states that research conducted by Georgia Southern University has found an increasing lack of self awareness among children and their parents about their weight today compared to twenty years ago. The author also discusses the social comparison theory-we compare ourselves to the people around us, who are also getting heavier, instead of looking at it from a medical and scientific standpoint.  As we compare ourselves to others, it creates a cycle in which we continue to get fatter without seeing the consequences. The author, Roberto Ferdman is a journalist for the Washington Post who was raised in Puerto Rico.  Ferdman's biases may stem from the fact that America is one of the fattest developed countries, so he could have preconceived ideas on Americans continuously getting heavier without acknowledging our obesity issue. It is evident that he agrees obesity a large problem and that it needs to be dealt with starting with children.

Lastly, the third piece of evidence is Why are Americans Obese? from publichealth.org.  This article listed reasons for why Americans have gained so much weight in the last decade: more meat and calories, poorer food options, less activity, and the list goes on.  The article mentions that American's are burning nearly 150 calories less a day now compared to 50 years ago.  Publichealth.org is an organization run by Anju Abraham, a graduate student in the Master of Public Health at Fresno State University and she received her degree in public health and health administration from Northwestern University.  Abraham's biases may include being overly concerned with the topic at hand because of her education being solely centered around public health, she may have too much invested in the issue of obesity to discuss other factors not related to our poor choices when it comes to health. 

Why is it socially acceptable to be obese is arguable because it is now common for people to be obese in our society despite it's negative ramifications. Even just 20 years ago seeing someone morbidly obese would have been odd, but today to is uncommon to not see someone extremely overweight. I want to know why obesity is not dramatized further and what makes it okay for our society to allow our health to be on such a steep decline.  Many researchers and doctors from sources I have found are in agreement, obesity is getting out of hand.  I have yet to find a source that states obesity is not a problem in our country.  My perspective is still very much inline with my sources, being that something needs to change.  I do not think we should "fat-shame", but that we should promote healthy lifestyle ideas, especially with kids.  I do not think I will revise my research question so far because I have found so much information on this topic and find obesity interesting. 

