Controversial Visual Texts

After a very long time of sitting in confusion trying to figure out a good topic to write this on...I finally decided on the growing epidemic of obesity in the United States...as I guiltily stuff my face with after-dinner munchies while watching tv...oops.  Here are my two visual texts to analyze!  I think they are good ones...

In the first visual text, two maps of the United States are shown.  One map is from 1998 and the other shows the United States in 2008.  The shaded maps display the prevalence of obesity in each state.  Obviously, there has been an extreme increase in obesity since the late 90's in the United States.  I personally found this extremely disturbing and very thought provoking.  To begin with, why has obesity increased so much and become such an issue?  I believe many answers to this question exist.  First of all, the fast food industry has most definitely impacted the growth of obesity in the states.  Last year, I wrote a paper for my AP Government and Politics class on the book "Fast Food Nation" ...and was extremely disturbed.  The book explained the history behind the fast food industry and how they manipulate customers (specifically children) to buy and consume their products.  The convenience of the concept of fast food, however, is too good to pass up sometimes.  This brings me to my second point.  Society is extremely fast paced.  A day rarely exists when I do not have 10 things to do in a short period of time.  We drive from home to school to work to restaurants to the store to everyyyywhere every single day.  This doesn't leave much time to sit down and fix a healthy meal!  I believe the fast paced society we live in definitely correlates with the growing issue of obesity in the United States.

The second image I chose shows a young girl suffering from childhood obesity.  Specifically, the caption underneath her caught my attention.  "It's hard to be a little girl if you're not"...ouch.  That is really blunt.  This specific visual text shows the dangers of obesity on children.  If a child grows up with unhealthy eating habits, they are likely to continue those their whole lives, and furthermore, raise their own children with unhealthy eating styles!  

It's scary to think that we could potentially face the future of a completely fat country!  Gross!  I think that these sources will be good to analyze and discuss in a paper!