Obesity in Oregon

Over 176,500 young adults under 20 years old have one form of diabetes. One in every 400 to 600 children has type one diabetes, according to the National Diabetes Statistics Web site. Diabetes is just one of obesity related health problems among children and adults. Obesity also causes other health problems such as hypertension, heart attacks and high cholesterol. In 2004 obesity related deaths ranked number two, smoking came in first. By 2005 obesity related deaths was expected to pass smoking as the number one cause of death, according to Medscape.com.

The idea of an American family and dinner time has changed. Americans lead busy lives, in a typical family home, both parents work a forty hour week, most arriving home late. Most of those families would rather relax than think about making a well balanced meal for everyone. Usually they will grab what it closest or easiest such as a microwave dinner, take out or order a pizza. We all want to spend time with our families and watch our favorite TV program. The last thing anyone wants to think about is cooking after a long day at the office.

Eating out was once thought to be expensive, now because of places like Jack in the Box and McDonalds, it is affordable. You can go to McDonalds and feed a family of four for less than twenty dollars. It is fast, easy, tasty and most of all cheap. To feed a family of four a balanced meal, for example chicken with rice and a vegetable, costs more in both time and money something we are all short on. Fred Meyer, a local grocery store chain in Oregon, usually has pretty good deals, but look at what it costs to feed a family of four. I went to Fred Meyer hoping to spend less than $20.00. Foster Farms offers three chicken breasts in a package for around $9.00, but you would have to buy two in order to feed a family of four. One package of Uncle Ben's instant wild rice only has two to three servings per container for $2.50 which means again you would have to buy two packages. As for a vegetable, a bag of organic baby carrots cost about $2.00. When it was all said and done, a healthy home cooked dinner for a family of four costs about $25.00. This is not including the time spent making the dinner and doing dishes afterwards.

Lack of health choice at restaurants makes eating right difficult. According to Foodfacts.info, in 2005 fast food chain, Wendy's, pulled their fruit salad option after only ten months on the menu, sighting low sales. Many fast food chains have started to offer healthier choices such as Subway which offers raisins and yogurt, and Wendy's offers mandarin orange fruit cups in place of fries. Some sit down restaurants have followed suit such as Red Robin which will allow you to order either a petite hamburger patty or a Boca Burger substitute for any of their burgers. Unfortunately other places do not offer alternatives or the alternatives are not well advertised by the prospective restaurant. Red Robin might offer a Boca patty substitution but it is in fine print which is barley visible at the very bottom of their menu.

Eating out has taken the control over serving sizes away. A burger at Red Robin is normally a one pound patty with unlimited. At McDonalds, a medium fry package now has nutritional facts listed on the side. It shows how many calories are in that amount of fries along with the sodium content. What they are not taking into account is the amount of salt added to the fries after cooking, and the person filling the container usually over fills. Therefore the nutritional facts and serving size information provided is inaccurate.

As adults we need to set a good example for our youths. Children see how much their parents eat and they think this is the right amount of food for them. If you are always taking your children to McDonalds because you simply don't want to cook all you are doing is setting them up for to then be obese. Gastric bypass surgery is the second only to breast augmentation, as the most common surgery among young adults. The time is now for us to start setting a good example for all people and start making smarter choices of food, make the effort to cook healthy meals, and rethink what a serving size is.