Progress: Benefit or Hindrance?

It is funny because my original "thesis statement" is incredibly different from the one I have now.  I was originally going to write about how school lunches are contradicting what school districts promote, but it became boring to write, so I switched over to a subject that I actually want to learn more about: obesity.  Advanced technology and affluence in communities of developed countries has influenced the obesity epidemic to increase dramatically.  With the technology we have nowadays, it has made our lives more convenient, taking away are will to do physical activity.  We forget about the importance of exercising because now we can do almost anything at home.  I am not going to say society is not progressing because we have come up with so many useful tools over the years, but I am not sure if our progress outweighs the negatives.  Focusing on the subject of obesity, in my AP Environmental text book, a graph shows that the third leading health risk in high-income countries is overweight and obesity, with physical inactivity, high blood glucose, high cholesterol, and low fruit and vegetable intake following afterwards (Andrew Friedland, pg. 465).

If I were to give all of you a choice, I can guarantee that a majority would choose a pizza party over a 5k run.  Obviously there are many of you who do enjoy exercising, but if we look at the bigger picture, obesity has really become an important issue we need to solve.  It is literally a matter of life or death.