The Change Mariner

Obesity To Surpass Tobacco As #1 Killer

Yahoo! News:

Americans are sitting around and eating themselves to death, with obesity closing in on tobacco as the nation's No. 1 underlying preventable killer.

The government is offering constructive, even lighthearted, advice to fight what it calls an epidemic of expanding waistlines. Americans will be told in a new ad campaign they can lose midsection "love handles" and double chins one step at a time if they eat less and exercise more.

"We're just too darn fat, ladies and gentlemen, and we're going to do something about it," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Tuesday at a news conference.

A poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump over 1990, said a study released Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tobacco-related deaths in the same period climbed by less than 9 percent and the gap between the two narrowed substantially.

The report predicts obesity will surpass tobacco if current trends continue. "Our worst fears were confirmed," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC's director and an author of the study.

Posted by Timothy Fredel at March 9, 2004 06:45 PM | TrackBack
Related Categories: Industry - Food | Industry - Healthcare | Quadrant - Social | Theme - 'Obesity Epidemic'

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