Obesity is now a major global epidemic. What can be done to tackle this increasingly common problem?

The Global Problem of Obesity

Obesity is now a major global epidemic. What can be done to tackle this increasingly common problem?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.

In today's world, our lives have become very sedentary, in the homes and even at our work places. This is why obesity has become very rampant. Easily available fast foods is a huge factor as well as our total dependency on technology such that we can do our jobs, communicate with our loved ones and shop online in the comfort of our homes. This also means that there is a minimal amount of physical activities carried out daily. Healthy eating and more exercises will go a long way in curbing this serious issue.

Foods that contain abundance of fat are incredibly addictive. Substituting them for healthy meals feel like punishments initially but health enthusiasts say that abs are made in the kitchen, that is, foods consumed make up to 80% of what is needed to lose weight. Weight loss is difficult to achieve but taking it step by step will aid in combating obesity. Making deliberate efforts to take a walk every hour will help sedentary workers stay active all day. For example, the Fitbit app alerts users to take a break to walk 250 steps every hour.

Parents can help their children by ensuring that they play outside instead of being on computers, playing video games or watching television all day. Meanwhile, Government should understand that this epidemic is growing out of proportion and thus heavily tax fast food chains and help farmers produce fresh fruits and vegetables.

In conclusion, our sedentary lifestyles and readily availability of fast foods have greatly increased the risk of obesity, however, making bold choices to choose healthy foods and increase in physical activities will help to combat being overweight. Additionally, government giving concessions to farmers will help in ensuring that fruits and vegetables are available to all.

The TA score for the first paragraph is always based on the accuracy of your restatement. As such, you are not to present any opinions of your own such as:

- In today's world, our lives have become very sedentary, in the homes and even at our work places.
- Easily available fast foods i... carried out daily.

These 2 pieces of information are not required nor a part of the original presentation. These remove the accuracy of your prompt restatement as these are personal opinions that should be discussed in the 2 reasoning paragraphs. The less accurate your prompt restatement is, the more unlike the original your information representation is, the lesser you will be scored due to 2 possible reasons:

- inappropriate restatement format
- Irrelevant response to the given prompt

Either errors applied to your score will result in a less than passing TA score for you. A more appropriate restatement would have been:

Due to the international outbreak of fatness, it has become all the important to address this growing concern. In order to arrest this situation certain steps can be taken by both the public and the government. The public could help solve the issue by ... While the government can implement...

Always outline your discussion topics because this will help the examiner assess your degree of English comprehension skills and vocabulary resource. The reasoning paragraphs will then be easier for you to write because you know exactly what you will be discussing in each paragraph, rather than using a redundant discussion as you did in this essay. Never start your opinion discussion in the restatement paragraph, that is what causes the lack of clarity and problem in discussion development in the actual reasoning paragraphs.

The conclusion must never contain additional discussion information. There is a reason that is called the reverse paraphrase. That part of the test forces you to show your LR and GRA skills as you are made to summarize the original prompt and reasoning paragraphs in this section, to bring the discussion to a close. If you introduce new information, you instead create an open ended discussion, which can affect your TA score.

Although you have included relevant examples from experience that are apt on a more individual level, you should look at more examples that have been successful to curb obesity globally. This needs to be researched and incorporated in the essay. I believe it would make your prompt stronger and well researched. Here are some examples I could think of :

1. Tax- Countries have implemented tax on fattening foods- you might want to look at this and see if something like this was effective
2. Food Labels- There are policies in countries around labels to help consumers understand what they're eating
3. Education and communication strategies: Any educational interventions that have been successful in preventing obesity.