Health Crisis in the United States: Consumer & Industry Analysis Essay

This essay explores the health crisis in the United States, attributing the issue to unhealthy food choices by consumers and the food industry's practices. It argues that consumers often prioritize convenience over health, relying on packaged foods and overlooking the consequences of high sugar, sodium, and calorie intake. The essay highlights the industry's role in promoting unhealthy products, often misleading consumers with deceptive labeling. It emphasizes the link between obesity and serious health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. The author concludes that both consumers and the food industry share responsibility and that a shift towards better food choices and more ethical industry practices is crucial for mitigating the health crisis. The essay references studies from ScienceDaily and the CDC to support its arguments.

Running head:BLAME THE SYSTEM:HEALTH CRISIS
BLAME THE SYSTEM: HEALTH CRISIS
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Introduction
Health crisis is a major concern in the United States that mainly comes from unhealthy
food choice. The consumers of the United States does not think of the consequences of unhealthy
food practice and make their and their families daily life easy by feeding on packaged food. The
food industry too does not miss the opportunity to make money by selling unhealthy foods,
labelled healthy ones. The thesis statement states that the consumer has to make a smart food
choice by learning the side effects of the packaged food provided by the food industry.
Body
Unhealthy food habits in the United States is the main contributing factor to increase
healthcare cost. People of the United States thinks obesity to be a global health crisis and
disagrees with improving their lifestyle. The people prefer to feed on fast foods that are high in
calories, sugar and sodium instead of homemade food. The consumers of the United States
object on food restrictions and added taxes on beverages and unhealthy food. Consumers chose
not to blame junk food; instead; they blame the availability of cheap fast food. Increase in
consuming unhealthy foods by the consumer’s boosts up the industry to make more foods, which
increases the risk of obesity.Moreover, the people of the United States are unaware of disease
like high blood pressure, kidney disease, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, arthritis,
cancer are associated with obesity. A study from Science daily states “Results of the study
showed that 94 per cent of people believed individuals are primarily or somewhat to blame for
the rise in obesity” (ScienceDaily, 2020). National Center for Health Statistics estimated that in
the year 2015-2016, 39.8% were obese, and 31.8% were overweight (Cdc.gov, 2020).

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The food industries primarily contribute calorie to a person’s diet. The aisles of the
grocery store provide with mouth-watering packaged food which attracts us again and again.
60% of people feed on packaged food for which the industry needs to increase its productivity.
The food industry does not focus on a person’s well-being. They are the money makers, and they
focus on that by adding junk items even in healthy substance. The industry fools people by
presenting packaged orange juice, grape juice as healthy drink, but the contents of the drinks lead
to serious diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The industry
tricks people by mentioning the amount of sugar in grams. It’s difficult for any layman to
understand 39 grams of sugar is equal to 9.75 teaspoons of sugar. Consumption of sugar through
packaged food is not nutritious, and it leads to metabolic syndrome. The food product is marked
as healthy, even after having a significant amount of sugar. Another trick the food industry
adopted by using different names for sugar. Along with this, the vegetable oils which are sold as
safe is no good to an individual’s body (Steele et al., 2016). The food industry is not an
education business, so they focus on growing their business and earn a profit.
Conclusion
From this essay, it can be concluded that both consumer and industry are equally
responsible for the health crisis. The consumer must observe obesity as a personal problem and
adopt effective strategies, and then make better food choice to enhance their lifestyle. The
companies should reduce advertising unhealthy food products as a healthy substance. The
industrialist must focus on hire nutritionist and enhance the quality of the products. The world
will have been a safer place if the industry and consumer shift their focus on better quality food
and healthy food. The people of United States can prevent obesity by practising good food
habits. This could save time and money from visiting clinics and spending on medicines.

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References
Cdc.gov. (2020). CDC - NCHS - National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved 20 February
2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/index.htm
ScienceDaily. (2020). Who’s to blame for obesity? Policy makers, the food industry, or
individuals?. Retrieved 20 February 2020, from
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140122112422.htm
Steele, E. M., Baraldi, L. G., da Costa Louzada, M. L., Moubarac, J. C., Mozaffarian, D., &
Monteiro, C. A. (2016). Ultra-processed foods and added sugars in the US diet: evidence
from a nationally representative cross-sectional study. BMJ open, 6(3), e009892.