Obese in the US now outnumber the overweight

www.DrWeigh.com

The obesity crisis is getting worse and worse! A new report states the the number of obese individuals in the US now outnumbers the number or 'merely overweight' individuals. Congratulations America. Something must be done before every American is considered overweight or obese.

Where can we start?

1. New York City now requires most restaurants to post calorie information for all food offerings. The calorie information must be at least as visible as the price information. This law should be generalized to the entire United States.

2. I love the idea of an obesity tax. Let's make unhealthy foods more expensive. And let's try to lower the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables. Maybe fruits and vegetables could be tax-free. The government could use the money from the obesity tax to offset any lost tax money from fruits and vegetables.

3. Serve ONLY healthy foods in schools. Get rid of all vending machines. Lose the cookies, cakes, and other junk food. Stick to lunches that are nutritious. Do you know that many schools serve mozzarella sticks and nachos for lunch? Let's get rid of all of that stuff and turn our schools into healthy havens.

4. Let's put more money into school physical education programs and after school athletic programs. Nowadays, the money for school athletics goes to the elite athletes who are good enough to play on the sports teams. None of that money is used for the chubby, non-athletic student who needs it the most! We should take the emphasis off of competitive sports and start building non-competitive sports leagues for those students who are not currently physically active.

5. Limit child-targeted advertising. The average child sees 40,000 commercials a year, mostly for high-fat, high-calorie foods. The reason companies spend so much money on child-targeted advertising? Because it works! These commercials prompt children to crave these unhealthy foods. Remember when commercials for alcohol weren't allowed on TV during certain hours? Let's do the same for child-targeted junk food commercials.

These steps may seem severe but they are necessary. Without intervention, our country is going to eat itself to death.