The Real Skinny on Health

Drop the chalupa. And the chocolate cake and the super-sized french fries. There’s no hiding the obvious: We Americans are getting much fatter. Forget plump, stocky, hefty or zaftig. We’re talking fat--dangerously fat.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that nearly 18% of Americans, one in five, are obese, up from 12% just eight years ago. But define “fat” to include folks who are overweight but not obese, meaning they are less than 30% over their ideal weight, and, according a separate study from Tufts University, you’ll have to include a record 63% of men and 55% of women.

Kids too are getting fatter and, with diets loaded with sugary sodas, breakfast cereals and candy, are setting themselves up for a lifetime of medical problems.

Such widespread obesity is now a public health crisis. With at least 280,000 and perhaps as many as 374,000 deaths annually because of calorie-induced heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes and other diseases, obesity is approaching the lethality of cigarettes, which kill 430,700 people each year.

There’s no mystery about why it’s happening. We’re eating more, especially more high-fat fast food, and still getting way too little exercise. We drive when we could walk, and our children watch television instead of playing outdoors.

Despite the hype about low carb diets, zone diets, liposuction, synthetic fat and appetite-suppressing hormone injections, there’s no magic bullet in the battle of the bulge. So, as soon as you finish this paper, lace up your shoes and go out there and walk as if your life depended on it. It does.