Rise in Obesity

Abstract

Obesity has increased dramatically over the past 30 years. Since obesity is the cause of many illness and diseases it is crucial to help stop this American epidemic. Rate of obesity has in fact caused the Health Association to revise their food pyramid to fit the lifestyles of the American people today. Obesity has in fact become one of leading causes of deaths in America. This has grabbed the attention of many politicians. A current advocate for healthy living is Bill Clinton. It is soon predicted to rise above tobacco in preventable deaths. One of our goals is to predict the rise of obesity years from now by using data from the past years. Our prediction is that obesity in 10 years with show that half Americans will be obese. If the rise stays constant the obesity rate will be overwhelming in 30 years. We would like to raise the awareness of obesity rates in order to try and prevent future rates in obesity from increasing like our data hopefully will show. We will also use many different computer programs such as geometry sketch pad to manipulate the equation for the rate of obesity throughout the years and the internet to gather data. After collecting the data we will use a Texas Instrument calculator to determine a linear regression. Using the information derived through our data in the calculator we will use geometer's sketchpad to graph the linear equation. From the graph in geometer's sketch pad we can determine what the predicted percentage of people that are obese in ten years, twenty years or any future year we desire.