Obesity in America

Excerpt

In 1937 the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company demonstrated in its publication of "Girth and Death" (1) that mortality rates were excessively high in obese persons and provided data on the causes of that excess mortality. For more than 50 years obesity has been one of the commonest health problems in the United States and other affluent societies. Although obese Americans now spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually trying to lose weight, the national investment in obesity-related research has been contrastingly small and progress in prevention and treatment scant. Understanding of the biochemical and neurologic mechanisms that regulate eating and