Weight Loss: Comparative Analysis Of Articles

Comparative Essay

Purpose Statement

The two forms of writing I will be comparing are John P. Foreyt’s article, “Weight Loss Diets: Are They All the Same?” and Sarah Corapi’s article, “Why it Takes More Thana Grocery Store to Eliminate a ‘Food Desert’. The purpose of this essay is to compare the two writings and identify the differences and similarities in the two pieces. The reason for the comparison of the two is that they both have one common goal in mind; fighting obesity. The basis of the comparison are the populations targeted and the different issues that go along with obesity. In John’s case he is targeting dieting specifically and in Sarah’s case, she is targeting the issue of populations that do not have access to grocery stores and even when the issue of food desert is fixed, the issue of the specific populations eating habits do not change. The audience that I will be targeting are my classmates and my instructor. The essay I will be writing is relevant today because the issues the authors wrote about which I will be comparing are real today. Me being from Scott County, we are near the bottom of the list in the state for wealth. Austin, a town within Scott County is specifically poor and do not have anything more than a Dollar General to shop for food, this essay is will be relevant from the setting that my home county is involved with these issues. I hope to achieve comparing the two articles and their two different forms of combating the obesity epidemic and seeing how the two combined can form an effective plan to help combat the issue.

Half Draft

Obesity is one of the major detrimental issues in society today. So much that the prevalence of obesity has increased from 13.4 percent from 1980 to 33.8 percent in 2008 among adults (Foreyt, 2010). That is a major jump and one that is very complex to explain. John P. Foreyt’s article, “Weight Loss Diets: Are They All the Same?” explains the differences between two specific diets, the low carb and law fat diets. The reason for the comparison of these two diets are because they are two of the primary diets that are used in order to achieve fat loss. Some claim one is better than the other but studies from Sacks and Colleagues suggest that low-carbohydrate diets initially result in more weight loss than low fat diets; however, over time the differences tend to narrow as weights begin to return to baseline (Sacks, et al. 2009). Basically, what is being said is it does not matter the type of diet that is being used but rather the decrease in calories is what caused weight loss. What types of demographical areas typically struggle the most with diet and obesity? Sarah Corapi suggests that low income, low access areas that lack the convenience of supermarkets make up a large portion of the nation’s obesity issue (Corapi, 2014). In fact, there are 23.5 million people that live in areas without supermarkets or other stores where they can access fresh foods (Corapi, 2014). Once communities do obtain a supermarket to shop from, will that help solve their communities’ issue with obesity? According to Sarah, “The problem may not lie solely with food accessibility; it could also be due to people’s shopping and eating habits.” (Corapi, 2014) If access is not the true issue, then eating habits and diets are the true raise of concern. Coupling John P. Foreyt’s article and Sarah Corapi’s article I believe can help with a conclusion on how to combat this issue but also in comparison how are their theories and tactics different?

What is obesity? According to Terry Watkins obesity is where mammals/humans have stored so much natural energy reserves that the fatty tissues they are stored in have expanded to a point where it is medically considered a health risk, with a possible increased rate of mortality to that body (Watkins, 2014). Calories are the source of energy and John P. Foreyt suggests that, “Calories are calories; only the caloric intake level has an effect on weight loss, not the source of calories (Foreyt, 2010). So, in theory based off his statement if a person was to decrease their caloric intake per day, fat loss should occur. How can this translate into areas with lower incomes? Although it is true that “calories are calories,” calories are made up differently depending on the macronutrient; a gram of fat equals 9 calories while a gram of protein and carbs equal only 4 calories (Foreyt, 2010). If communities are gaining supermarkets but not changing their food choices as Sarah Corapi suggested, what are they consuming? Cost is a major factor in what food choices lower income families make. Sarah Impatenco simply states that, “A package of hot dogs, for example, is only a dollar or two, while fresh beef or pork can cost several dollars a pound. Energy-dense foods — those high in calories such as sweets and fatty processed foods — are also cheaper than whole, fresh foods, and many low-income families rely on them as a major part of their diet (Impatenco, 2018). Generally lower income families are in fact consuming more fat, sugary, less nutrient dense foods than those that have more of an income. Even with having access to fresh, healthier foods to suggest that these families would break their habits of food choice is crazy to suggest.

Bibliography

1. Corapi, Sarah. “Why It Takes More than a Grocery Store to Eliminate a ‘Food Desert’.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 3 Feb. 2014, www.pbs.org/newshour/health/takes-grocery-store-eliminate-food-desert.
2. Foreyt, John P. “Weight Loss Diets: Are They All the Same?” Food Engineering and Ingredients, vol. 35, no. 3, June 2010, pp. 38–40., http://www.cengage.com/custom/static_content/OLC/s76656_76218lf/foreyt.pdf.
3. Ipatenco, Sara. “The Eating Habits of Low-Income Populations.” Healthy Eating | SF Gate, 27 Dec. 2018, healthyeating.sfgate.com/eating-habits-lowincome-populations-11376.html.
4. Sacks, Frank M., et al. “Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates: NEJM.” New England Journal of Medicine, 26 Feb. 2009, www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0804748.
5. Watkins, Terry. ‘Obesity.’ The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. Gale In Context: Science, https://link-gale-com.fortwayne.libproxy.ivytech.edu/apps/doc/CV2644031575/SCIC?u=ivytech31&sid=SCIC&xid=5c980654. Accessed 8 Mar. 2020.