In the United States, the amount of people that are a healthy weight is scarily low. In between obesity and eating disorders, very few people are left in the middle of the spectrum of weight.

In 2009, most states had a of 25-29% rate of obesity; and there were nine states that had an obesity rate of over 30% (obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than or equal to thirty). This means that at least a third of the United States is overweight.

On the other side of the spectrum, at least 10 million females and 1 million males are struggling with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, while an additional 25 million people struggle with a binge eating disorder. Since the United States has a population of about 300 million people, this means that about 10% of the population of the US has an eating disorder.

The American mentality when it comes to eating and “perfect” body types needs to change in order to fix these problems. People need to realize that eating smaller portions of better food will give them what they should have: a healthy body.

To improve their health, Americans need to stop consuming so much fast food. This greasy food has more calories than people think and in order to make people more aware of the food they are consuming, I propose that the number of calories in a food should be put on all menus, something that In-N-Out has recently done.

However, something else has to be done to discourage people from going too far in the other direction, developing eating disorders to be thin. For example, although the average woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds (and has a BMI in the healthy range), the average model is 5’11 and 117 pounds (and has a BMI that is drastically under the healthy range).

We see these models and pressure ourselves into thinking that we must be thin to be attractive because our society seems to have decided that thin is beauty. 

Laws need to be put in place that models have at least a healthy BMI, mannequins need to be made to look like actual people in regards to the sizing, and TV shows should put on actors and actresses that look like real people.

If we combat obesity at the same time, real people will be healthy looking and easier to emulate, and then maybe our entire country could be in the perfect middle on the weight spectrum.