Obesity is prevalent in our current generation especially among women due to a variety of factors. Ironically, the price of eating out is cheaper than cooking food in your own kitchen. For example, the price of a cheeseburger is cheaper than a salad. Trying to buy organic food which is considered more healthy for our bodies is more expensive than fast food that is easily accessible. If we go to McDonald’s we can get a cheeseburger from the dollar menu but if we walk into Whole Foods market, a salad can range from $5 to $10. Ironically, employees at Whole Foods who weigh less are given a greater discount than their fellow employees whose BMI are above a certain range. Although this is supposed to be seen as motivation and an incentive for their workers to become more “healthy” it seems discriminatory. Their thinner workers receive an additional 10% off their discount for having a lower body mass. Therefore, if your BMI is above 30, you get to keep your original 20% employee discount, but “thinner” co-workers get as much as a 30% discount.

For some people it is harder to lose weight due to restrictions from their body or even genetic disorders. Also, looking at our society in the United States our portions for food are larger than countries everywhere else. Everyone’s lifestyles are different and so the convenience of getting cheaper and fast food is easier than attempting to cook a healthier meal that is more costly. When I went to Korea, their McDonald’s big mac was half the size of our big mac in the states and they didn’t even have the option to get larger sized fries. Only in the United States do we have the option to “super size” and it seems that our lifestyles provoke this problem of obesity.