Human beings possess the capacity for free will, that is, to voluntarily choose a specific course of action. However, some choices lead to undesirable consequences, especially those involving nutrition and physical activity. Obesity rates in the United States have been steadily increasing for decades, with rates reaching epidemic proportions. These rates did not increase due to a difficult-to-control factor such as a communicable disease; they increased due to personal decisions. In America, the enormous amount of sodium, sugar and fat in foods, as well as the sedentary lifestyle of many Americans, have caused an increase in obesity; As a result, individuals must take a stand by modifying their diet and exercise choices. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay For starters, Americans simply consume too much sugar. This innate desire for sweet foods stems from man's prehistoric ancestors. Before modern technology, fruits were in short supply compared to vegetables, and pre-human primates sought these sweet, energy-boosting morsels for their high-calorie, nutritional properties. “Because it is more difficult to retrieve fruit from a tall tree than to simply eat the grass or leaves around it, an intense, innate craving for sugar was needed to drive early primates towards this food.” However, advances in agricultural processing have allowed people to grow fruit easily and without costing a fortune. The rarity of fruits disappeared, allowing humans to succumb to their gluttony and consume as many fruits as they wanted. Technology has also evolved enough to allow the filtration and concentration of fruit sugar, typically through juicing and creating fruit candies. Unfortunately, both developments quickly led to excessive sugar consumption, the latter more than the former. An individual still receives the benefits of the pulp and peel when eating whole fruit, but loses those aspects when consuming fruit juice. Additionally, because companies know that humans crave sugar, they add it to most of the food products they produce. “Manufacturers, in fact, add sugar to 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets.” These processors use as many as 61 different names for sweeteners, including: cane juice, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, rice syrup and many others. While most added sugars come from soft drinks and desserts, added sugars are also present in unsuspected places like cereals, pasta sauces, energy bars, ketchup, and salad dressings. For example, a cup of a specific type of bran and raisin cereal contains 20 grams of sugar per serving, and a type of breakfast bar contains 15 grams of sugar in a serving. Since so many products contain extra sweeteners, it becomes easy for individuals to quickly consume the recommended daily amount of sugar. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that adults and children should consume no more than 10% of their daily calorie intake in sugar, with the ideal amount being less than 5%. This means that an individual on a 2,000-calorie diet should consume less than 50 grams (12 teaspoons) of sugar per day, and less than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) is the ideal amount. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends similar amounts for adults: less than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) of added sugar perday for women and 38 grams (9 teaspoons) for men. Unfortunately, the average American ingests about 82 grams (19.5 teaspoons) per day, which equates to about 66 pounds per year. Another aspect of sugar addiction comes from its addictive properties. A study by Avena, Rada, and Hoebel found that “intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavioral and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. ...intermittent access to sugar and food can produce an 'addiction'”. Additionally, the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that “animal data showed significant overlap between consumption of added sugars and drug-like effects, including binge eating, craving, tolerance, withdrawal, cross-tolerance, cross-dependence , reward and effects of opioids”. Numerous other studies have highlighted a correlation between sugar and addiction; therefore, if humans excessively consume sugar on a daily basis, many individuals are likely to experience symptoms of sugar addiction. How does this relate to obesity? Over time, excessive sugar consumption can change the balance of hormones in the body. When an individual consumes sugar, the amount of glucose in the blood increases, leading the pancreas to release insulin. With these elevated insulin levels, the body begins to store more food calories as fat (SugarScience Team). Therefore, as individuals consume more and more sugar, they are likely to gain weight. The easiest way to avoid excessive weight gain and other negative effects from sugar consumption is to find out how much sugar is in each product. There is a nutrition label on the back of most processed foods; by reading this, people can see how much sugar companies have added to the product. Below the nutrition label is small print text of the ingredients in descending order by quantity. The higher the ingredient, the more of that ingredient is in the product. Moderation is the key. Through the little effort of reading a label, people can see how much sugar they are consuming and can easily put a product back if the amount of sugar exceeds a healthy amount. Likewise, fast food also contributes to America's obesity problem. By definition, fast food is just that: quick meals. Employees prepare food quickly, economically, consistently and deliver items to the customer almost instantly. Millions of Americans eat at fast-food restaurants every month, with most customers driving to eat their meals. The pervasiveness of fast-food restaurants proves to be a compelling argument for why so many people choose to dine at places like McDonald's or Subway. There are currently approximately 160,000 fast-food restaurants in the United States. In addition to their ubiquity, fast-food restaurants typically serve large portion sizes. Food portions have doubled or even tripled in the last 25 years. For example, a cheeseburger in 1993 weighed 4.5 ounces; it now sits proudly at 8 ounces. These larger portions distort an individual's view of what a normal serving size should be, contributing 1,595 more calories than the same portioned foods from 25 years ago. This equates to over 500,000 extra calories per year. Furthermore, the costs for these meals are not necessarily high. Fast-food restaurants place convenient menus inside each of their stores, enticing customers to purchase entire meals for very little. For most people, paying atotal of less than three dollars (before tax) at McDonald's for a cheeseburger and a bunch of fries seems like a better deal than buying groceries and cooking for yourself. While these foods cost little in terms of money, they could come at a high cost to your health. For one thing, fast foods like french fries and burgers typically contain high amounts of sodium. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a fast food cheeseburger contains 710 to 1,690 milligrams (mg) of sodium. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that people consume no more than 2,300 mg per day; however, American adults consume more than 3,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium each day. That means Americans are ingesting about 1,100 mg more than they should. According to a study by Ma, He and MacGregor, high salt intake may have a link to obesity. They said: “The results showed that salt intake as measured by 24-hour urine sodium was higher in overweight and obese individuals. . . . Higher salt intake was also significantly related to higher body fat mass in both children and adults…” Therefore, reducing fast food intake (and therefore sodium intake) may help overall cardiovascular health and reduce the chances of obesity. As well as high amounts of sodium, fast foods typically contain high amounts of fat and sugar. For example, a Burger King Whopper contains 48 grams of fat, a medium fries from McDonald's contains 19 grams of fat, and a regular tuna melt from Quizno contains 94 grams of fat. The Cleveland Clinic recommends that 20 to 35 percent of an adult's calories come from fat. On a 2,000-calorie diet, that equates to about 44 to 77 grams; however, individuals must distinguish between types of fat, as only 10% or less should come from saturated fat. This means that people who frequently consume fast food are likely consuming too much fat. So, as mentioned in the section on sugar addiction, the main source of sugars comes from sugary drinks like soda. High amounts of sugar and fat in foods result in high amounts of calories. If an individual consumes more calories than they burn, their body will end up storing them as fat. The more fat that is stored in the body, the more the individual will weigh, leading to obesity. To reduce the risk of obesity and other adverse conditions due to fast food consumption, individuals should limit the number of times they consume fast food, if at all. Moderation is the key. Eating fast food once every two months may not be harmful, but eating fast food once a week could be costly. Another way to reduce the risk of obesity from fast food consumption is to simply cook for yourself. This allows direct control of what goes into the food you consume. Some individuals may not have time to prepare meals every day; so, meal planning and extra cooking for an entire week helps a lot in this aspect. Additionally, most Americans don't get enough exercise. This lack of movement stems from the omnipresence of sedentary activities such as television and video games. As technology advances, it has taken over leisure time across all age groups, especially children. From an early age, children start watching YouTube on their parents' smartphones and playing games on the family computer. They sit at home for hours, blankly watching whatever colorful video plays on their small screen. In contrast, children of previous generations went outdoors to play with childrenneighborhood children, exploring and creating vast, imaginative worlds where anything could happen. While some children still do the latter, the majority of a child's time is spent interacting with whatever technology is in front of them. The CDC found that children typically spend more than 7.5 hours a day in front of a screen, which takes away time that could be used for exercise or outdoor activity. If a child sits most of the day, regularly consumes too many calories, and does not burn them through aerobic or anaerobic exercise, he or she will likely gain weight. Even teenagers don't get enough exercise. They too have fallen victim to overexposure to technology, texting and tweeting instead of going out and socializing with their peers. According to Common Sense Media, teens typically spend about nine hours a day with digital devices, doing activities such as watching Netflix, listening to music and playing online games. Furthermore, teenagers spend about 7 hours a day in school, probably sitting in class most of the time. Then, as adolescents become adults, school time becomes work time. Many jobs in the United States involve long periods of sitting, such as software development or accounting; in fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that in 2016, civilian workers spent an average of 61 percent of their workday standing or walking and 39 percent of their workday sitting. While 39% may seem relatively low, it's still equivalent to sitting for just over three hours in an eight-hour workday. “One of the major risk factors for heart disease and premature aging of the heart is sedentary lifestyle, or sitting for hours at a time,” says the American Medical Association. In addition to being bad for the heart, sitting for hours reduces the amount of calories an individual burns in a day. The Harvard School of Public Health states: "Physical activity increases people's total energy expenditure, which can help them stay energy-balanced or even lose weight, as long as they don't eat more to make up for the extra calories they eat. they burn." Therefore, doing the right amount of exercise leads to a healthy lifestyle and, probably, a healthy weight. Individuals can increase the amount of exercise during the workday by choosing to stand when applicable (such as when answering a call), taking the stairs rather than an elevator or escalator, and walking or cycling instead to drive. When at home, people can perform exercise movements while carrying out usual activities. For example, doing squats while waiting for food to heat in the microwave or calf raises while stretching are easy ways to add resistance training without going to the gym. Additionally, people can go for a jog in their neighborhood, do a yoga session in their living room, or go outside and simply play catch with a friend instead of dealing with the television or cell phones. Just like sugar and fast food, moderation is key for screens. One might argue that obese people are predisposed to becoming obese based on their genetics and not their personal actions. In monogenic (monogenic) diseases, only one gene causes obesity. The researchers found a couple of examples where mutated genes caused severe obesity, one of which involves the protein leptin. A mutation of this gene causes defective leptin receptors, resulting in an inability to suppress hunger. This leads to excessive consumption and weight gain. A more common type of.