Obesity: A Weighty Issue

America is 4.6 Billion Lbs. Overweight, and Our Health Care System Is Straining From the Weight of It All

(CBS)  The obesity epidemic affects adults and kids across America. And those extra pounds that weigh us down as individuals are all adding up to a big health challenge for our country. Our Cover Story is reported now by Seth Doane:

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Temptations are everywhere, and with so much "glorious food," odds are good that if you dare to step on the scale this morning you are not going to like what you see.

It's gotten so bad that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that one-third of American adults are overweight. Another third are obese.

It's an epidemic that's causing concern at the highest levels of government. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius calls the data "alarming."

"It has an impact at every step along the way, on costs and on quality of life, on a productive workforce," she told Doane. "We are really putting ourselves at a huge disadvantage in a global economy by having a nation that is vastly overweight."

"Really? Just for being too heavy?"

"You bet, you bet,' said Sebelius.

This is not the first time the federal government has sounded this alarm. Dr. David Satcher was one of the first to say there was an obesity epidemic in America, nearly a decade ago, when he was Surgeon General.

"We have addicted ourselves, and we are now addicting our children, to sedentary lifestyles, diets that are high in fats, salts and sweets," he said.

Visit CBSNews.com's "Healthy Living" Section

"Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, dramatically. It increases the risk of heart disease, of stroke, of hypertension, increases the risk of many forms of cancer. And you think about the costs of health care and the role that chronic diseases play, obesity is a major factor in all of those chronic diseases I have just listed."

And those costs are staggering…

"About $147 billion a year are spent directly related to obesity and the underlying health conditions related to that," said Sebelius. "That compares with all the cancers that people have across America, which cost a little under $100 billion a year. So one-and-a-half times as much money is spent [on obesity]."

Obesity is determined by your body mass index, a rough calculation of body fat based on your height and weight:

18.5 - 24.9 is considered normal
25 - 29.9 is considered overweight
30 and above is obese

To determine your own body mass index visit WebMD's BMI Calculator.

So, if you're 5'10" (like Doane), and tip the scales at up to 173 pounds, your weight is considered normal. From 174 to 208 pounds, you're overweight. And 209 pounds upward qualifies as obese.

Adult obesity rates have doubled in the past thirty years. Why?

Some of the answers may be familiar.

Instead of sitting down for that home-cooked family meal, we'll grab something "on the go." Maybe we'll "super-size" it for good measure.

Whatever the reason, on average we're consuming 300 more calories a day than a quarter century ago.

And we're not burning them off. Today, we spend less time walking, more time driving, sitting in front of the computer or TV.

So, a question: Is it simply a matter of personal responsibility, or do food retailers play a role, too?

Subway, which touts a menu that includes some low-fat sandwiches, has even more U.S. locations than McDonald's.

"We're trying to respond to the need for better choices that people are demanding," said staff dietitian Lanette Kovachi.

In Subway's Milford, Conn., test kitchen, Kovachi regularly reviews calorie counts for new products.

"You talk a lot about offering healthier items, but there are some very unhealthy items on the menu, too; isn't that a contradiction?" asked Doane.

"I don't think so. You know, our whole thing is we want to offer choice," Kovachi replied.

But, how do you make healthy choices when they simply do not exist?

Lucinda Hudson and Holland Brown led a 12-year battle to bring a grocery store to this Philadelphia neighborhood.

"It was horrible, to say the least, about a community as big as this, to have no supermarket!" said Hudson.

Jeff Brown owns this Shop Rite franchise. He opened four locations in the inner city, thanks to grants and loans, all part of a Pennsylvania program designed to encourage healthier living.

Before the supermarket opened, the only options in the neighborhood, said Brown, were small bodegas. "And the bodegas did not have a lot of fresh food, and their prices were very expensive. So we have a situation that the poorest of us had to pay the most. And that's the part that just doesn't work."

Success here is tallied in the receipts. This store sells the same amount of fresh foods as its more affluent, suburban counterparts. And even if fresh costs more, Regina Brown says it's worth it:

"It's going to cost you one way or another," Regina Brown told Doane. "It's going to cost you health-wise - or it's going to cost you money-wise. Either way you pay. So I'd rather pay this way."

"Pay on the front end?" asked Doane.

"Pay on the front end, yeah," she said.

And those "back-end" health care costs may only get bigger.

"In children, obesity rates are about four times higher than they were, say, 40 years ago," said Dr. Walter Willett, who chairs the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Part of the problem is we don't see the full impact of obesity until many decades later," he said. "So the children who are now growing up obese, 20 and 30 years down the road are going to have horrendous problems that we've really not seen before."

So, what can be done?

Dr. Willett and some colleagues advocate taxing sugary drinks (like soda) to help reduce consumption and raise funds to fight obesity.

And the first family is leading by example, with the most famous gardener in America, Michelle Obama.

In spring, planting a vegetable garden at the White House, and again last week, the first lady encouraged kids to get more physical activity.

Today, one-third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese.

With ballooning health care costs and crippling disease, Secretary Sebelius says we need to act . . . soon.

"I think to me one of the most sobering statistics is the fact that we have a generation of children alive today who may live shorter life spans than their parents - first time in 200 years," Sebelius said. "And the major cause for that is obesity."


For more info:
Healthy Weight (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Trust for America's Health


More Stories and Videos from the "Sunday Morning" Special Edition, "Size Matters":
At Duke, Doctors Teach Obesity Ownership
Physique Helps Mo'Nique Strike It Big
In Slim Role, Bertinelli Beats Back Bulge
Deep-Frying Is Where the Magic Happens
A Parisian Food Fight
A Body of Work: Artistic Ideals of Beauty
Slideshow: Body Art
The Axis of Food Evil: Fat, Sugar and Salt
Welcome to Thin City: Colorado's Low Rate of Obesity
Nancy Giles with Big Questions on BMI

[sandy19731]

Let's face it we are a nation of people who have very little self control.

[formrusmcsgt]

And very little pride in appearance to go with it.

[queenofclubs]

I am so fed up with this 'war on obese people' that the media is raging! There are many, many so-called "obese" people who are indeed healthy and fit. Why does the media continue to ignore or downplay this? There are SKINNY people who are not healthy, who get cancer, diabetes, heart disease and die, too! This overemphasis on obesity is NOT about concern for health. It's just another way to establish a pecking order where those who are thin can feel morally superior to those who aren't...and it encourages discrimination against those who are larger than what is considered acceptable. Sizism is the same as racism or sexism.

[formrusmcsgt]

Even if the obese don't succumb to diabetes or stroke, etc., the extra weight on their frame wears out knees and hips.

The skeleton is not designed to withstand the wear and tear of supporting the equivalent of 2 or 3 bodies.

Hips and knees for one obese individual can cost $150,000.

You think the individuals who wear out their joints from gluttony pay for this?

Of course not.

We ALL do.

[formrusmcsgt]

"Sizism is the same as racism or sexism."

People don't determine their own race or sex, but do determine their size.

Nice try....

[formrusmcsgt]

"We are really putting ourselves at a huge disadvantage in a global economy by having a nation that is vastly overweight."
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Maybe the Surgeon General should remind the public periodically that washing down a 2,000 calorie meal with a diet soda serves no purpose.

[formrusmcsgt]

One factor regarding the obese that has always confounded me is where is their pride in personal appearance?

They must have a mirror at home........

[mswolfestock]

Their state of denial is as big as they are.

[formrusmcsgt]

We need for health insurance premiums to reflect the increased costs of the obese just like we have for smokers.

Making people pay for other's increased costs due to obesity is as unfair as non-smokers paying the same as smokers.

Watch 'em stop super-sizing their meals and their ass if they have to pay for their own increased costs.

Right now, lard-***** are getting a free ride on the backs of those of us who are NOT gluttons.

[formrusmcsgt]

Funny how CBS allows the singular "ass" yet censors the plural form.

Stupid.

[formrusmcsgt]

I readily accept that some restaurants heavily salt foods.

I have not used salt for over 30 years now.

Many times I have left a meal after a couple of bites and demanded a N/C for serving me food too salty to consume.

I stopped asking years ago why restaurants salt their food so much because I always got the same answer everywhere - "because if we don't, people complain that it has no flavor".

Watch people salt food that they haven't even tasted yet for saltiness....incredible.

For all the harm that excessive salt does, it does not make one fat.

Calories do and salt has virtually none.

There is a good book "The end of overeating" which describes the association of fat, sugar and salt in combination, which is purposly
used in restaurants and fast food places. They cause a person to crave the food and to also overeat it. Quite an interesting and informative book. I highly recommend reading. David Kessler MD author

[msalabama]

Never once in the program was a vegan diet mentioned and only a slight reference to a vegetarian diet was offered in the sumo wrestlers diet. Vegan and vegetarian diets are the absolute best solution to the obese America problem. Too bad the media and Washington DC are owned by Agribusiness and cannot help solve the problem.

[ubrew12]

to say nothing of heart disease. The Ornish diet is 'eat all you want and lose weight and defeat your heart disease'. But it's recipe's are kinda tough. I picked up a book called 'The Vegetarian 5-ingredient gourmet' which has simple vege recipe's. I'm not a vegetarian, but am taking baby-steps in that direction, for the planet's sake as well as my own.

[displeased]

I know some overweight vegetarians. They still eat french fries, onion rings, and cookies. Most of the vegetarians I know are thin though. But I'm sure it's more from responsible eating and not from the lack of eating meat. Eating meat doesn't cause obesity, lack of self discipline does.

[SunDog8259]

Something must be done about our faulty "food pyramid" -- its even shaped like the average American! It's not the meat & butter that gets us, but the bread, sugars and pasta. I noticed the Sumo wrestlers gained all their weight on a low-fat diet including lots of rice.

[TrickynWV]

BMI (Body Mass Index) is flawed. I can think of 2 distinct body types that would fit a 5'-10" 220 pound frame. One would be obese, the other would be very defined and muscular.

[helloall34]

Yes, BMI really needs to be scraped. It is worthless and hurts more then it helps. The scale is a bad measure. The tape measure is much better.