“Americans today take in an average of 600 calories a day more than we did in 1970. That can add up to a weight gain of five or 10 pounds a year.”

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“Substance abuse? That’s so last century. Our problem now is sustenance abuse. Opiates are optional, but everyone’s gotta eat. And therein lies the path to dietary disaster in America. ‘If you go with the flow, you’ll be fat,’ is how Weight of the Nation, HBO’s epic four-part series on our obesity crisis, sums it up. And once your weight creeps up, it puts you at risk for a whole range of unhealthy, unhappy outcomes.

“It also puts you in the majority; two-thirds of Americans are now either overweight or obese. ‘Weight of the Nation,’ which premiered on May 14, kicked off an ambitious multimedia public health campaign for which HBO teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Permanente, and several other health-related institutions. Together, these groups are sounding the alarm about the terrible burden we’re needlessly inflicting on ourselves and our children.

“Forget about free will and free markets (which, by the way, aren’t so free, thanks to dubious agricultural policies and industry meddling). As ‘Weight of the Nation’ makes clear, this epidemic of preventable disease won’t be solved by invoking the mantra of personal responsibility and waiting for the food industry to put healthy people before healthy profits. It would take a public/private partnership of unprecedented proportions to get us back on track.

“We’ve tolerated … even cultivated … a food culture that’s literally toxic. And we’ve engineered exercise right out of our lives. This double whammy has dire repercussions; as David Nathan, director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Diabetes Center notes, ‘It is simply too easy to consume too many calories, and too difficult to expend those calories.’

“‘Weight of the Nation’ tells the sorry tale of all the forces that compel us to pile on the pounds–and how we could hypothetically shed them, given the right set of circumstances–through interviews with experts, profiles of kids and grown-ups who wrestle with their weight, and some truly appalling statistics and alarming charts. You may think you’ve heard it all before, but did you know that the way we eat is literally driving us crazy? If you’re overweight or obese, you’re 80 percent more likely to develop dementia.

“Given those odds, we’d be insane not to try to change our ways. But, after you watch ‘Weight of the Nation,’ you’ll have a new understanding of why losing …” To continue reading this article from AlterNet, click here.

“The news about the country’s fight with flab appears to be only getting worse. By the year 2030 — if the current trend is unchecked — an estimated 42% of adults will be obese, and the percentage of severely obese will more than double the 2010 figure to 11%, according to a study published online May 7 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.” – (SOURCE: American Medical News)