As we are all aware, Americans are facing the problem of weight control and obesity. In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control, nearly one third of all Americans are obese, or exhibit a BMI greater than 30. Obviously, this leads to health problems such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, osteoarthritis to name a few. Causes of the epidemic include consuming too many calories, living an inactive life and lack of sleep. Exhibiting all of these qualities is inevitably a disaster. So if all this information is available to us, why are we still so inclined to pursue such health hazards?

One of the main causes of obesity is increased fastfood consumption, prevalence, and proximity. A study conducted by Janet Currie, Stefano DellaVigna, Enrico Moretti, and Vikram Pathania entitled “The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity” found that obesity rates were higher among ninth graders by 5.2% whose school is within a tenth of a mile of a fast food joint. In fact, the study even adjusts for income, education, and race to decrease the presence of lurking variables. However, I see a huge flaw in this study. Did the researchers take into consideration the student’s health habits and exercise routines? Based on these results, this study indicates that there is an association between fast food and proximity. Perhaps this raises public policy issues with regards to restricting fast food development near high schools. People argue that America needs to learn to overtake self indulgence, but how much control do we have over that?

What causes the surge in fast food consumption? Some argue that fast food is cheap, quick, and reliable. However, what about fast food marketing and commercials? In this decade, children are exposed to about 40,000 television ads a year, double the amount from the 1970s. In fact, more than half of these commercials are fast food related, while commercials for healthy options have decreased significantly. Although it is extremely difficult to conduct a study that determines whether or not high presence of fast food advertising causes obesity, there is a clear correlation. Ellen Goodman of the Washington Post in “The Big Fat Case Against Big Macs” argues that companies are exploiting children. For example, she states that McDonalds allures children by including a toy with the meal, and using that as the advertising basis. The presence of attractive advertisements, such as the fall of an appetizing onion and tomato on a juicy burger in a Burger King commercial, takes advantage of America’s weakness of lack of self control.

Let’s take a look at some of commercials and compare them to reality here. These comparisons are fast food marketing at its best. Sure they look great on tv, but are we even getting anything close to that “polished” and “photoshopped” quality?

It would be interesting to conduct a study to find a correlation between IQ and obesity, while adjusting for age, income, race, physical activity etc. Mississippi has the highest obesity rate in the country and also the lowest average IQ. Connecticut and Massachusetts have the lowest obesity rates besides for Colorado but have the highest IQ rates, respectively.

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