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Fat In America

The Center for Disease Control is sounding an alarm. It says Americans are now fatter than they have ever been, the heaviest since the government starting keeping records. And despite billions of dollars we spend on diet aides, America’s waistline keeps growing.
We, Americans, can’t stop eating. That’s the conclusion of a federal survey that estimates 6 in 10 Americans are overweight, more than 1 in 4 obese. The conclusion: too many of us consume too much and exercise too little.   Obesity is a rapidly growing disease that affects over 39 million Americans: more than one-quarter of all adults and about one in five children. While some people are more susceptible to obesity than others, obesity causes at least 300,000 excess deaths in the U.S each year. Obesity is a constant, metabolic disease caused by multiple and complex inherited and acquired factors, including excessive calorie and food intake, decreased physical activity, and genetic influences. The defining characteristic of obesity is excess body fat.   Long-term treatment and management are required to achieve and sustain weight loss. Today more than 70 million Americans are overweight. Obesity, particularly when associated with unhealthy patterns of body fat distribution, results in 300,000 preventable deaths each year in the U.S. and over a billion dollars in health care costs. In the last ten years, the proportion of the population that is obese has increased from 25 percent to 32 percent - a level that may very well be considered a spreading epidemic.
The USDA recently surveyed food intake changes and came to the conclusion that, 'Americans are eating more grain products, especially grain mixtures, such as lasagna and pizza, as well as ready to eat cereals and grain based snacks like crackers, popcorn, pretzels, and corn chips' (What we eat in America). It also has come to fruition that American's show a decrease in dark-green vegetables and deep yellow vegetables. For example, twenty-five percent of...