When 69% of adults in the U.S. over the age of 20 are overweight or obese, it is safe to say that there is a problem with the American diet. There are multiple causes for obesity, including a lack of grocery stores, too much television viewing, the cost of a healthy lifestyle, and overeating. These causes are proven to be especially prominent in lower income areas. Governments and activists have attempted in recent years to come up with solutions to the said causes, but through research and experimentation, there is a common loose thread throughout each of the causes, knowledge. Even with all the plans implemented to make healthy food readily available, nothing can quite be done unless people know what they are looking for when they walk into a grocery store, or what they are doing when handed a pan and a piece of chicken. Knowledge is power, and since everyone has been given the power to control their life decisions, some only need the knowledge to educate them on how to carry out everyday functions like eating.

There are many possible causes for such a worldwide epidemic like obesity. Some argue there is a lack of grocery stores in impoverished areas ("food deserts"), that watching television encourages unhealthy snacking and laziness while advertisements promote of fast food, that there is a substantial difference between the price of fast food and the price of healthy groceries, and that 'overeating' is something that needs to be monitored and cannot be controlled by any outside forces. Of course, there are many more reasons why obesity is such a problem in today's society, including anatomical reasons, but there is government and parental action being taken the most with these.

'Food deserts' are substantial issues in lower income areas. This term is relatively new, referring to areas of the country that are wiped clean of fruits or wholesome foods. To address the issue of food deserts, a city tax incentive program was designed, planning to bring healthy foods to poorer neighborhoods. "In 2011, a 17,000-square-foot supermarket opened, aided by city money that paid some 40 percent of the costs of its construction." (Sanger-Katz), had been implemented by governments while they also developed a Healthy Food Financing Initiative that donated more than $500 million to assist grocery stores to build in areas they did not want to originally. Many states have also produced their own programs to bring grocery stores and farmers markets to these neighborhoods that lack fruit and vegetable consumption, since obesity rates are statistically higher there. As a result of all of these, access to healthy food increased, but unfortunately healthy diets of majority of the residents did not. With some more research into the results, the National Bureau of Economic Research came up with a discovery. They found that, "no more than a tenth in the variation in the food people bought could be explained by the availability of a nearby grocery store." (Sanger-Katz), instead, they found the education levels of the residents/shoppers became predictable. This means that they have all of the access to purchase foods but not the slightest clue of what they really need.

Watching too much television plays a large role in childhood obesity. Time states that studies have shown that kids that spend more time in front of a television or computer are more prone to eat more calorie dense foods, drink sugary drinks, and eventually grow up to be overweight adults. A U.K. study followed children over 30 years into adulthood, and found that every hour of TV children watch on the weekends at age five raised their risk of being obese adults by 7%, meanwhile a Japanese study discovered that kids that watched TV more often at age three were put at a higher risk to be overweight at age six. "The average American child sees nearly 8,000 commercials on TV for food and beverages, and only 165 of these are for nutritious options like fruits and vegetables," (Park), which surely that much exposure will have an affect on a child's eating habits. Advertisements are what adolescent brains are being fed when they lay in front a television, and leaves them believing that snacking is fine because they do it all the time, and a burger and fries is great for dinner because a lot of lively people are eating it in the commercial, and that ice cream can not be that bad when people look that excited to eat it, right? Children immediately become uneducated on the realities of healthy versus unhealthy foods when they are being educated by commercials. Researchers such as the AAP committee (American Academy of Pediatrics') advocate for parents to limit TV time to a maximum of two hours a day, and encourage parents to be proactive in keeping TV's and internet connections out of adolescent's bedrooms. They state it is also a wise idea to "watch television with their kids, so they can educate them about commercials and learn to distinguish healthy from unhealthy foods." (Park). 

Unhealthy foods being significantly cheaper than healthy is definitely argued in impoverished communities. Eating out and purchasing pre-made meals eventually adds up and becomes awfully expensive. The cost of eating out is paying per person, and adds up easily depending on how many mouths a household has to feed. Meanwhile mass purchasing ingredients and making meals at home is more cost efficient since it is a form of bulk buying. It is both and nutritionally beneficial because calories and ingredients can be regulated, and an educational experience necessary for a child's upbringing. A quarter pounder with cheese meal from McDonalds costs $5.79 before tax, and consists of a burger with cheese, fries, and a soft drink. For a family of 6, this would cost at least $34.74 to feed each mouth just one meal. However, at a grocery store, one could buy a box of 6 hamburgers for $12.99, buns, cheese, baked fries, and a gallon of water for under $20 and hundreds fewer calories. With just a little bit of research, it is invalid for one to claim that buying groceries is more expensive than buying fast food or eating out. The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine conducted a study that concluded the average annual cost for a healthy food diet was $5,019 per year, while the convenient food diet (fast food) was $10,298, which is more than double the latter. Oakton Community College also did a study calculating the amount of whole food items per person per week, and concluded that it costs about $45 less a week to eat healthy. The article on SFGate finishes with an important point, "While fast-food does have the singular advantage of being more convenient, healthy foods provide much greater nutrition at a fraction of the cost." (McKnight). The only thing required besides ingredients is just a little bit of knowledge on how to cook.

With all of these plans being put into work, there are of course many criticisms of each. Implementing a plan that encourages grocery stores building in lower income areas raises much controversy. Wal-Mart is famous for being extremely cost-efficient. With the recent discovery of food deserts, Wal-Mart has been highly criticized for avoiding impoverished neighborhoods since they are capable of providing people with their needs for lower prices. However, according to Cost of Being Poor: Retail Price and Consumer Price Search Differences across Inner -- City and Suburban Neighborhoods Wal-Mart has just as equally been faced with attacks by local stores for preventing the success of community businesses by taking their profits and therefore negatively impacting its owners and employees. These attacks put big corporations in a weird position between choosing to listen to the governments and communities with requests replenish their area with fruits and vegetables at low prices, or listening to businessmen in the community whose families will suffer by their big corporation taking their local profits. Wal-Mart is in the public eye for this issue and helps to identify why building in a food desert has some disadvantages.

Watching much television has frequently been ruled as a negative action for children. People argue that it takes away from what children could be doing otherwise, such as exercising, reading a book, or hanging out with friends. The University of Montreal conducted a study claiming that the more TV a child watches even in their first few years, the more likely he/she is to be obese and muscularly unfit. It is therefore understandable why parents would take actions to pull their child away from the television screen. However, their prevention can cause negative affects as well. Raise Smart Kid states that, "Studies show that kids who watch educational and non-violent children's shows do better on reading and math tests than those who do not watch these programs." (_________). They also quote a long term study by Anderson that concludes that preschoolers that watch educational programs achieve higher grades, are noticeably less aggressive than kids their age, and hold school to a higher standard later in life. Most people would agree that valuable life skills such as learning how plants grow, how the human body works, and how to cook are more interesting to learn about when watching TV than reading about it in a book. This creates a personal decision between getting kids away from television screens to get them outside and more active, and encouraging their child's interest in specific shows to further their education.

Though there are not many benefits, fast food chains do offer some worth that people miss out on when they cut these chains out. The most popular benefit people omit when they follow a strict no fast food diet is the convenience. Fast food menus over a variety of options, thus making a quick stop there to those who don't exactly know how to cook even more convenient. Also, fast food is higher in calories, so those who are looking to meet a calorie count don't have to look any further than a McDonald's Whopper, coming in at 660 calories. Livestrong.com also points out that different types of fast food allow people to try meals from different countries and expand their cultural palette. Although there are definitely many downsides to eating fast food very often, those who diet to exclude it are missing out on many exciting and convenient benefits.

Overeating is an issue that is quite often overlooked and there is not much that a third party can do to solve it. Those who are at risk of obesity or becoming overweight should learn to monitor their portion sizes. Denny-Wilson and Campbell state that, "Maruyama and colleagues show that the combination of these two factors-eating quickly and eating until full-are additive (odds ratio for being overweight and having both eating behaviours compared with having neither 3.13 (95% confidence interval 2.20 to 4.45) for men and 3.21 (2.41 to 4.29) for women)" (_______). This becomes problematic in a situation such as a teen not eating lunch at all during the school day, and coming home and binge eating everything in sight, and then watching television. Nobody can really stop a person from overeating, so the solution includes self control and monitoring consumption. When combining overeating with other causes of obesity such as watching television, the fact grows into more of a problem. The article also cites a study that identifies food consumption as directly correlated to amount of food served, and that 85% of parents encourage their children to eat more, which results in 38% of children eating substantially more than they would have wanted. Starting unhealthy habits at a young age put a child on the wrong path for the rest of their lives, and the responsibility and finding a fix for overeating falls on parents to teach their kids correctly, and adults to monitor their own portions. 

An experiment was conducted in San Francisco with incarcerated women that involved cooking. They gathered around a table looking at the ingredients provided by Soul Food's cooking class, and were in utter confusion. The class was designed to teach low-income women how to cook and eat fresh foods. Women asked if the items were vegetables, while some asked if they had to eat the 'hairs' on the fennel, which the teacher Vera Pittman quickly corrected to be fronds. Most women in the fennel 101 class were from the Bay Area's poorest neighborhoods, and it is unnerving to discover that some people that grew up in these areas do not know how to cook, let alone identify a raw vegetable. They cannot be blamed though, the common sense people hold when they have grown up is based on their experiences and their own personal upbringings. For example, the group of women from the study are from places where health issues develop as a result of a poor diet, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. "They will die, on average years earlier than wealthier Americans." as stated by Heather Gilligan.

The experiment including the Soul Food class aids in exposing the commonality between nearly all the causes for obesity, knowledge. Those who don't grow up exposed to fresh fruits and vegetables obviously will not know how to cook or simply eat them, so what does it matter if more grocery stores are built in their area if residents do not know how to shop in them? Additionally, when children are exposed to so many unhealthy advertisements and spend much time snacking and watching TV they are not being educated on the healthy foods and benefits that come with them. Most people do not even realize that relaxing and eating a bag of chips feels good but leaves their body with 25 grams of carbs they are not working off. Thinking that constantly eating fast food is cheaper than groceries is also result of misinformation and not actually getting out to experiment. Knowledge is lacking too in situations where a person eats until their plate is cleared instead of eating until they are simply satisfied. While fueling their body with nutrients dense foods is beneficial, it is not a positive mindset to be clearing a plate even when they are not hungry. With a little bit of research and education, all of these situations could be cured. In proving that knowledge is the issue behind all of the causes for obesity, experimentation and comparison have been the most effective methods because they include real life people and situations. Obesity and knowledge have an inverse relationship. Gaining knowledge on how to cook, eat, and shop cost-effectively is the best way to eliminate a toxic lifestyle.

Education is the key to success in today's society. Obesity is not a relatively new issue, as the years go by researchers find different reasons as to why it's a growing problem, and government agencies implement laws to combat it. There's a reason why the issue is still prevailing, people's education fails them. Without the right experiences from day one, like being exposed to something as simple as an apple, people will not know, and with no knowledge, people will not hold the power to make their own healthy, educated decisions to join in the fight against obesity.

