The essay below is an expository essay and was written in 15 minutes. Please give me some feedback on my essay ( a score of 1 being the lowest and a score of 5 being the highest).

Question

Prompt: Explore how obesity affects a nation's productivity and economy.

My essay:

Americans are facing an epidemic of obesity. Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are on the rise and putting many Americas at risk. More importantly, obesity decreases productivity and the nation's economy.

Firstly, the health issues associated with obesity cause productivity and the economy to decrease. For example, people with cardiovascular problems are likely to spend more time in the hospital than they would at work. As a result, workers on sick leave most of the time. Moreover, people with diabetes need to eat frequently to maintain their balanced blood sugar, which means that they will take more breaks to eat. Consequently, this takes time away from accomplishing their job.

Secondly, people with obesity tend to not have the energy to do work. Weight gain can make people feel heavy and tired all the time. In fact, it is often denoted that Americans are overfed but undernourished. Without a healthy weight, people with obesity can face physical health challenges that hinder them from achieving their full potential. Thus, few people willing to work results in a slow economy.

Provided that obesity decreases productivity and the nation's economy by decreasing time spent working due to health problems and by preventing people from willing to work due to an unhealthy weight, the government must carry out action to educate the public about health.

Answer 1

You're doing quite well. It makes sense, ideas seem to follow each other, and your sentences are clear. One thing that jumps out at me is "Firstly" and "Secondly". Those words are unnecessary, clumsy, and poor form. Delete them. The topic sentence of the paragraph establishes the idea, and we can count paragraphs. And I think you tend to over-generalize. You have no proof that overweight people are always out on sick leave, for example. You might say that studies indicate that obese people tend to take more time off for illness than those who are not obese, not that all obese people take too much sick leave. That's one example. Look over your essay and try to avoid that kind of "blanket" statement.