growing waistlines

I believe it has more to do with how many and how accessible fast food places there are around (as well as how lazy some people are in not wanting to cook for themselves). It seems like I see a new fast food restaurant being built just about every week. Everyone knows that they attempt to make their food more "attractive" by making them taste better than average, meaning more sugar, more salt, more fat or any combination of the three. I've watched quite a few programs about morbidly obese people and, it never fails, we see these people either getting into their cars and going to a fast food restaurant or they send someone else out to pick up fast food restaurant food and bring it back to them. I watched a program about a man who purposely ate only fast food for 30 days and he had gained a total of 30 pounds in those 30 days! His reason was to show just how bad that kind of food is for us. It also has a lot to do with our lifestyles. Just about everything can be done on the internet these days and more people spend too much time just sitting behind their computers instead of moving around, taking walks, exercising or just being more active. I live in an area where there are four supermarkets nearby and lots of convenience stores in-between but I am not obese. I am not even fat. I have a few extra pounds but that is entirely due to my age, physical limitations and a specific medication. I eat more healthy foods to compensate for that, too. So, it is not that these stores are accessible, it is in what people choose to put into their bodies and how much they are willing (or able) to move around. I honestly believe that I'd be much happier if I had been born 100 years before I was. Back then, a person's job was their exercise. Not too many people actually sat at a desk all day long like they do today. More things were done by hard work and not by robots. "Fast food" was anything you could grow in your garden. It was hard living back then but we were much healthier as a whole.

Supermarkets are tied into the population of the area. If there is a high population a chain like Walmart is going to invest in that location. They do not conduct polls on the obesity in the area and then build a supermarket there if there is a high instance of obese people.

i don't think that is necessarily a tie but there is a tie between the number of fast food places and obesity. also, its just the new lifestyle of the 21st century. there are so many conveniences, food is widely available, why, even the poorest people in north america can get food. which is why there is obesity. they say that the new generation will not live as long as their parents, why? because of the conveniences.

Hi Labrat, i don't think that is the reason,because whether there is no supermarkets built in the nearby area, people usually goes to the market no matter how far it is to buy food. Obesity, clinically has more connections to the eating habits of the individual, also the type of food he eats,the metabolism and the type of activity. Access to the source of food maybe a factor but it is only a contributing one, besides,if a person has no money he could not buy food also. So one's economic situation is also a factor. Age is another, while still young, our body's metabolism is more active but gradually slows down when we are getting older. There are other factors but those are the ones more related.

I think groceries even restaurants have a great impact why people are becoming big because the food is not out of reach and they can just buy anytime they want and pile the groceries at home.