The cause of obesity can be found in an obese society Essay

The cause of obesity can be found in an obese society - Essay Example This essay "The cause of obesity can be found in an obese society" outlines the connection between society and the level of obesity. The general belief is that obesity’s primary causes is simple gluttony, promoted by consumer access to high-fat, palatable food products which incentivises choosing extreme consumption levels (Drewnowski and Spector 2004). However, there is evidence that obesity is caused by poor human nutrition factors as well as socio-psychological factors within a society. For the most part, obesity can be attributed to societal factors within an obese society and those who argue that genetic factors happen to be a contributor, which are beyond the control of the average consumer, maintain little justification due to the rarity of hereditary conditions underpinning obesity development. It is the obese society, itself, which exacerbates this problem in developed societies and this research illustrates what justifies such an assertion. Poor nutrition largely underpins the prevalence of increasing obesity rates in developed countries. One study which examined 5,200 women in the United States found that women who sustained food insecure households as a result of being at the poverty line had higher rates of being obese than women with more stable incomes (Basiotis and Lino 2002). A more recent, longitudinal study found a substantial correlation between childhood obesity and levels and food insecurity resultant of poverty conditions in the household (Eisenmann, et al. 2011).