Obesity in America: The Awful Truth

Fat people are destroying America.

Look, I know that statement is not exactly politically correct. But it's the truth. The obesity epidemic is the single most important political, socioeconomic, and human welfare issue facing this country today. I'll even go so far to say it's a threat to our national security.

How? Let me count the ways.

First, I'll get the most potentially offensive - -but true - -statements out of the way. America is a country of fat, arrogant, and extremely lazy people. We are the fattest people in the world, in fact. And just as the fat, self-absorbed, orgy-loving Roman emperors brought about the fall of Rome via their sheer, gristle-coated incompetence, America 's inability to crush the growing obesity epidemic may very well strike the lethal blow to a century of American world dominance.

The deluge of American fat is killing our children, our adults, and our ability to compete in a global marketplace. Statistics abound on the grim reality of our fat-crippled American future, and the impending doom our ever-increasing waistlines will inevitably cause is easy to grasp if one merely picks up a newspaper. Several news reports over the past few weeks and months have laid bare the desperate nature of our fat-laden situation:

· A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study released in May 2006 demonstrated that despite the fact Americans spend twice as much per capita on health care as the British do (about $5,000 per year per person in the US versus about $2,500 per person per year in the UK), middle-aged white Americans are far sicker than their British counterparts. Compared with the Brits, Americans showed significantly higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer - -all conditions that are directly traceable to obesity. A June 2006 study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that similar results when comparing Americans' health with Canadians'.

· A recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that a startling two-thirds of Americans are overweight; even more startling, it found that 28.7 percent of adult American men and 34.5 percent of American women were clinically obese.

· Perhaps the worst statistic of all - -20% of American children are now clinically obese, according to recent government figures, and upwards of 51% are overweight. And these numbers will only get worse.

Any competent physician can tell you that being overweight - - let alone clinically obese - - is bad, bad bad. Overweight and obesity are directly linked to any number of costly chronic conditions - - including heart disease, blood pressure, and type II diabetes, as well as many cancers, clinical depression, digestive problems, sleep disorders - -the list goes on and on. And caring for these chronic medical conditions - -all mostly preventable through proper diet and exercise - -is costly. It is no coincidence that health care costs and insurance premiums are skyrocketing just as fast as our waistlines are. And as a compelling series of articles in the New York Times showed last summer, Type II diabetes is getting to be such a public health problem in major cities that many American hospitals won't be able to handle a major medical disaster - -such as a bioterror attack or a bird-flu pandemic - -because their beds are full and their resources stretched to the limit by the treatment needs of obese Type II diabetics.

Talk about having a national security problem.

And skyrocketing health care costs are making it more and more difficult for American companies to compete in a global marketplace in which almost every other major industrialized nation has a universal, government-supported healthcare system - -not to mention much lower obesity rates. As anyone who follows the news probably knows by now, General Motors spends more on healthcare than it does on steel. Health care is also cutting into the bottom line of airlines like United and Delta, software giants like IBM, and the thousands of small employers who can no longer afford to provide health insurance for their employees. Local governments and public school systems are going bankrupt underneath the weight of health care costs; state governments are having to cut funding for education and public safety to maintain Medicaid rolls - -which are heavily populated by the obese. Even TRICARE, the insurance plan and healthcare system for U.S. soldiers and their families, is getting squeezed. If healthcare costs continue to rise at current rates, Medicare will be bankrupt in 10 years, Corporate America will be put out of business by foreign competition, and nobody but the richest of the rich will be able to afford health insurance.

Who, or what, is to blame for all this? Obesity, obesity, obesity.

In other words, fat people. Yep, that's what I said. Fat people are destroying America .

If you are still reading this and like 66% of Americans, have a weight problem, I'm sure you've started throwing rotten tomatoes at me by now. But it's time to wake up and smell it, people. Sure, we've all heard the doctors' advice - - "eat less, move more" - - but as the grim statistics show, nobody is paying attention. Stuff your face full of McDonald's for breakfast and lunch, drive for two hours to and from work, then veg out in front of the TV at night while stuffing your face full of Pizza Hut or Chili's To Go - - does this sound familiar to you? Probably. After all, it's our pathetic American lifestyle.

And it's killing us - - literally.

In fact, as former President Clinton has stated numerous times in his recent speeches, Generation Y is quite likely the first generation of American children who will not live as long as their parents will - -and obesity is solely to blame. The very idea makes me shudder - -and it should do the same to you.

But instead of standing together as a society and crying foul at this horrendous state of affairs, Americans have largely shrugged their shoulders at the problem, and are even taking steps to accommodate obesity. Indeed, it's now politically correct to call obesity a "disability", instead of a self-inflicted state that is completely preventable. Once upon a time, obese children and adults were shunned by society, called gluttons, sent to "fat camps" and subjected to Richard Simmons videos until they, at long last, either lost the weight or died of their self-inflicted, obesity-related complications. But in recent years, there has been a radical shift in society's tolerance of obesity alongside our skyrocketing obesity rate. The culture shift is so profound that now, even physicians are discouraged from attacking obesity head-on for fear of retribution. Indeed, physicians who merely suggest to fat adults (or their fat children) to seriously consider changing their unhealthy lifestyles risk being disciplined - -or even sued - -for "discrimination."

Doctors can even face penalties from their state medical boards for their "insensitivity" - - as Terry Bennett, MD, a New Hampshire primary care physician found out in August 2005. Shortly after he gave one of his obese patients a "standard obesity lecture", she complained to the New Hampshire State Medical Board, who launched an investigation, according to the American Medical Association. Doctors across the country are increasingly wary of bringing up obesity with their patients as a result.

This is sending the wrong message - - if your doctor can't even tell you that you're fat without being crucified for it, who can?

Even more disturbing, society at large is buying into this hypersensitive "fat is OK" attitude more than ever before. Hospitals are buying super-sized gurneys, wheelchairs, and beds. Movie theatres are adding extra-wide seats. Plus-sized clothing, once relegated to its own small section of the store, is now selling better than regular sizes. Television shows and movies feature more fat characters. Restaurant chains and soft-drink companies are resisting any attempt to regulate or tax them for their poisonous food and beverages in the name of "consumer freedom." Coffin companies are even creating special "super-sized" product lines to accommodate the super-obese when their bodies finally give out under the pressure.

Who is responsible for changing obesity from a once-shunned social stigma (and rightly so) to a celebrated, glorified state of normalcy? Fat people, again. The very same ones who are destroying America .

To prove that nothing - - not even maintaining a healthy weight - -is sacred anymore, the growing legions of obese have created lobbying organizations to convince us that "fat is normal." The National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance (www.naafa.org) is one such organization. According to its website, NAAFA works to "Empower the large number of people regarded by the medical profession as 'obese' to accept themselves, to live more fulfilling lives, and to promote acceptance of fat people within society."

NAAFA doesn't even acknowledge that obesity is a serious medical condition - -let alone the huge economic, social, and healthcare-related burdens obesity places on American society. NAAFA's Fat Activist Task Force even lobbies against the weight-loss industry, against the publishing of medical advice recommending healthy weight, and against reports and research studies from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and other national medical organizations that advise people on the serious medical dangers of obesity.

What's next? The National Association for the Advancement of Nuclear Waste Acceptance? The American Society For The Promotion of Chain Smoking? The American College of Carcinogenic Products?

Bottom line, a fat America is not acceptable. This country absolutely must take real steps to curb the obesity epidemic - -up to and including heavily taxing junk food, levying fines on corporations that peddle calorically-dense, non-nutritive food to children, and forcing the obese to either lose the weight or pay higher healthcare premiums and taxes than those of us who maintain a healthy lifestyle.

American society and attitudes towards obesity must undergo a complete sea change - -much like we have already done with cigarette smoking, automobile safety, and child protection. In order to reverse the tide, being fat - -let alone morbidly obese - -should be as socially unacceptable in America as lighting up in public or allowing an infant to ride in a car without a car seat. Caving in to the demands of lobbying groups, the media, or junk-food peddlers who insist that "fat is normal; fat is okay" is not the answer.