Dear Mr/Mrs. President

America has a problem, well, there’s a few such as ISIS and all that, but no problem is s serious, or has been around as long as obesity. To be considered obese, you must have a BMI of 30.0 or higher. BMI is a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness. Obesity is a problem all over the world, but America is the 12th most obese country in the world. America has an obesity problem; it’s time to stop it.

 According to HelpGuide.org, “Over the past 30 years, the number of children with weight problems has increased at an alarming rate. Today, 1 out of 3 children and teens in the U.S. are overweight or obese.” This shows that one in three children, our future generation, are obese. I think that if we want to stop this, we need to make more free gyms or weight loss programs. Or, give our schools a bigger PE budget so they can buy more equipment to help children get active. If we have any hope for this country to be like it used to be, we need to start by getting rid of obesity. “Those extra pounds put kids at risk for developing serious health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and asthma.”

According to Rita Rodriguez, “It is well known that children in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be obese, and being obese as a child can also affect school performance and lead to a host of health problems later in life.” Another way we can fight obesity is by making unhealthy foods more expensive than say, apples and oranges. Now, I know that unhealthy food is cheaper because of how cheap it is to make and produce as compared to healthy food, but maybe we can have special programs that make it even cheaper for farmers to raise and grow healthier food? “The convenience of cheap, highly processed foods leads many parents to believe that eating healthy meals is complicated or expensive, but in my Head Start program, I am showing families in East Harlem that this just isn't true.”

Now, Megan Mcardle, “Fat tissue makes people want to eat--it sends out for takeout. And hunger is a signal on par with thirst or pain. You can ignore it, if you have sufficient willpower. But just as most people can't withstand torture (a minority can), most people can't ignore the constant demand from their body for food.” However, if we make more rule and limits for fast food places, such as making it so they can’t put all those fattening chemicals or even make them use real meat, we can stop obesity.

If we do all these things, then we can stop obesity. This problem is one our country as a whole must realize is a problem, and one we must work together to stop. I think that if our country does work together to stop it, then we can.

Sincerely,

Tanner D., a student