Kisha Thakur, Thomas Wootton High School, Rockville, MD
Full manuscript: www.kon.org/urc/highschool/thakur3.html
Introduction Obesity has become a major public health policy issue in the United States (Hook, Balistreri, & Baker, 2009). As stated in The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion publication, “OBESITY: Halting the epidemic by making health easier at glance,” prevalence of obesity in the last three decades doubled among adults and tripled among children (CDC, 2011). About $147 billion was spent in medical care expenditures for obesity-related conditions in the United States. Moore and colleagues (2009) list a number of studies linking the consumption of junk food to obesity. Targeting obesity-related intervention and prevention efforts to subpopulations at greater risk of junk food consumption will efficiently reduce overall health care costs and health problems in the United States.