“This rise in obesity is due to poor diet and lack of exercise.”
You're writing a blog post about how you think America should solve the problem of having too many overweight people. You just wrote that obesity has increased over the last 20 years, then you off this possible explanation.
This rise in obesity is due to poor diet and lack of exercise.
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due to (something)
"Due to ___" explains expresses the cause of something.
You use "due to" in slightly formal situations. For example, an announcement on a train might include "due to ___":
Due to construction, the uptown 1 train will not be stopping at 50th Street, 59th, or 63rd. The next stop is 72nd Street.
The thing that follows "due to ___" should be a noun. As another example, if something happened because it's raining, you don't say "due to it's raining". You have to use a noun:
The game has been postponed due to rain.
If you want to say that the reason for something was an action, you have to find a way to make that action into a noun. For example:
The project was a failure due to lack of communication between team members.
The action in this sentence is "team members didn't communicate". But to put it in noun form, you say "lack of communication. You could also say:
The project was a failure due to team members not communicating.
In this example, "team members not communicating" acts as a noun.
"Due to" can fit into a sentence two different ways:
- (something) is due to (something)
- (something happens) due to (something)
this (thing)
In academic writing or when giving speeches, you can use "this" to continue talking about a topic from one sentence to the next:
By the end of the century, the number of hungry people in the world began to increase, rising to 798 million in 2001. This increase in hunger is not too surprising, given the lack of growth in the world grain harvest during this period.
a rise in (something)
When the number of something increases, you can talk about the situation with the phrase "a rise in ___". For example:
There's been a rise in the number of companies that are cutting employees.
You use "a rise in ___" in formal English.
a poor diet
"A poor diet" means not eating healthy things. You use the word "poor" to mean "not good" in formal situations in English, like when writing.
lack of (something)
"Lack of ___" means "not having" or "not being". You use this when you want to make a negative action into a noun:
A: I don't believe you.
B: Your lack of trust is understandable, but...