Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay

Laziness in America

By Greg Hill

Comp 2

America today is a very lazy place; people have become too accustomed to their ways and will not even consider what it is doing to them. Everyone constantly praises our wonderful technology; what they don’t realize is what our tech has done to us. As we depend more and more on gadgets to do things for us we lose ourselves to apathy and our personal interests completely forgetting the common good. When it becomes so easy to satisfy our wants we totally forget about those that actually need help. We drive a car 5 miles instead of taking the bus, we use the microwave instead of cooking a meal, and we take the easy way out. This American laziness brought about by dependence on technology and a decline in ethics and religion are large contributing factors to the decline of our society.

This laziness is apparent at all levels of society but it starts at the personal and individual level. Society tells us that we should do things as quickly and efficiently as we can; and people are always developing new ways to make things easier and more efficient for us all. Therefore as an individual grows he or she is always taught to do things as fast as possible; this unfortunately means that much work is cut out of the process. Having no hard work due to daily conveniences sets a dangerous precedent; an example would be how we get our news. Instead of walking a block down to the news stand we now just sit down in our lazy boy’s and couches and flip to channel 7. People are only required to walk about five feet to get what they want; the obscene convenience of these things eliminates any exercise one would get just in daily life.

Things like this are the root cause of obesity in the U.S., not just the mindset but the way we live our daily lives. Citizens psyches are under the impression that their obesity comes only from certain meals (Christmas, thanksgiving, etc) not all the time. Approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese (these stats taken from www.obesity.org). Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measurement tool used to determine excess body weight. Overweight is defined as a BMI of 25 or more, obesity is 30 or more, and severe obesity is 40 or more. Overall the problem stems from the general citizens lack of work ethic; in recent years that ethic has declined severely. It is the inability or flat out unwillingness to work and/or struggle to get what you want. The table below highlights the increasing obesity problem.

Increase in Prevalence (%) of Overweight (BMI > 25),

Obesity (BMI > 30) and Severe Obesity (BMI > 40) Among U.S. Adults.

Overweight Obesity Severe Obesity

(BMI > 25) (BMI > 30) (BMI > 40)

1999 to 2000 64.5 30.5 4.7

1988 to 1994 56.0 23.0 2.9

1976 to 1980 46.0 14.4 No Data

Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Health, United States, 2002. Flegal et. al. JAMA. 2002;288:1723-7. NIH, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, 1998.

The problem of laziness stems not just from a daily physical laziness but also from a spiritual lack. In medieval times little was known about the world and technology was just developed enough to allow survival. They had to work hard just to survive and the only thing that sustained them was their faith in higher powers. Compared to then few now