Prevent Disease.com - Obesity Epidemic Sweeping U.S., Harvard Forum Told



		Obesity Epidemic Sweeping U.S., Harvard Forum Told Excerpt By Greg Frost, Reuters Health Most Americans are too fat, are getting fatter faster, and aren't likely to get lean unless drastic changes are made in diet and lifestyle, participants at a Harvard University forum on obesity say. A day after U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona called America's obesity epidemic "the terror within," the forum heard staggering data on the size and cost of America's weight problem. "No part of the country has escaped it," Walter Willett, chair of the Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition department, said Wednesday as he showed how obesity had spread across the United States over the last two decades. More than three in five Americans are overweight, and nearly one in three is obese, meaning they carry so much extra weight that their health is at real risk. Obesity can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and several forms of cancer -- and it costs the U.S. health care system more than $90 billion a year to treat people who are overweight or obese. Patricia Gaquin is among those whose health is jeopardized by their weight. At 269 pounds, she has waged a losing war against her waistline for most of her life, and now it appears to be killing her. "My excess weight has caused or exaggerated type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, back and kidney problems, elevated cholesterol," Gaquin, choking back tears, told the forum. Gaquin has also recently been diagnosed with early-stage endometrial cancer -- a form of cancer linked to being overweight. Because of the diagnosis, the 48-year-old patient has had to postpone gastric bypass surgery that was designed to end her fight with weight once and for all. CAUSES STILL DEBATED The jury is still out on the causes of obesity, with consumer advocates arguing that aggressive food industry advertising and "super-sized" restaurant portions are to blame. Others fault heredity and lifestyle. When it came to examining the causes of her own obesity, Gaquin pinned the blame in large part on her family background. Both her parents, she said, were overweight, and two of her three siblings weigh more than she does. Genetics does play a part in deciding who is fat and who is thin, but the increasingly sedentary lifestyle led by most Americans is making it difficult for them to suppress the hunger gene, said Ellen Ruppel Shell, a journalist and author who has written about the role a person's DNA plays in deciding how much he or she eats. As for ways to solve the obesity epidemic, Americans have mixed feelings about the role of government. A national poll commissioned by Harvard and released on Wednesday showed that six in 10 Americans are in favor of requiring restaurants to list nutrition information on their menus. By contrast, most people oppose putting a special tax on junk food. But when it comes to fighting childhood obesity, most Americans welcome more government involvement, the poll said. More than eight in 10 Americans support providing healthier school lunches, and three-quarters said they back efforts to fight childhood obesity, even if it meant an increase in their taxes. Reference Source 89 For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".