I believe that America truly is the land of the free and home of the brave, but it has also become the land of the large and home of the huge. Our wide-body nation seems to reflect our culture of the-bigger-the-better. We live in our big homes and park ourselves in front of our big-screen TVs eating meals entirely too big for our own good. We need those big gas guzzling SUVs just to transport our big butts to the big box stores so we can spend big money on stuff that we really don’t need.
The average American gains 40 pounds between the ages of 20 and 40. Surveys show that during the holidays alone, the typical person packs on between 7 and 12 pounds. Most of that holiday fat never comes off. Compound it over the course of five years and that's an extra 35-60 pounds. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), being 40 pounds overweight constitutes obesity. [Different definition below.]
The World Health Organization says, "Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with more than 1 billion adults overweight—at least 300 million of them clinically obese—and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability."
Obesity is major contributor to the following diet-related diseases:
Chapter Ten: The Mathematics of Weight Loss
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 60 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64 - 65 - 66 - 67 - 68 - 69 - 70 - 71 - 72 - 73 - 74 - 75 - 76 - 77 - 78 - 79 - 80 - 81 - 82 - 83 - 84 - 85 - 86 - 87 - 88 - 89 - 90 - 91 - 92 - 93 - 94 - 95 - 96 - 97 - 98 - 99 - 100
