Obesity has become a major concern in the United States. The Center Disease Control (CDC) said around 26% of the population in the United States was obese in 2007, up near 2% from 2005 (Stark & Barrett, 2008 ö1). Obesity can be defined as having a high amount of body fat compared to lean body mass, or Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or higher (Lucey, 2008 p. 202). Healthy People 2010 goal number two is to eliminate health disparities listing nutrition and overweight as a focus area (2005). The news article selected to be critiqued is titled Weighing in on American Obesity by Stark and Barrett (2008).
The article Weighing in on American Obesity, was retrieved at ABC news online; where news stories can be found, including U.S., world, business, politics, entertainment, health, technology news and includes information about ABC television news (ABC News, n.d.).
The news article is about the growing epidemic of obesity in the United States that continues to rise, showing the importance of increasing efforts at the national, state and local levels (Stark & Barrett, 2008 ö3).
United States
United States
English: The graph shows the correlation between b...The article reviews the states closest to the Healthy People 2010 goal of 15% and the states furthest away from that goal (Stark & Barrett, 2008).
The community being discussed is the obese community; there are approximately 108 million Americans who are overweight and or obese within the United States (Lucey, 2008 p. 202). The nursing community first needs to do something to control his or her weight so he or she will not seem insincere when speaking with others (Lucey, 2008 p. 204). Nurses then need to discover ways to communicate with the obese population regarding weight and healthy lifestyles in a way that does not put blame on the client (Lucey, 2008 p. 204). If nurses...