At that rate, we risk wiping out the tremendous gains made in the past 25 years against cancer and heart disease by the middle of the 21st century. population that is obese has increased by 60 percent. Last year obesity cost the nation $92 billion, according to federal figures. Obese people are twice as likely as those of normal weight to develop Type 2 diabetes, 50 percent more likely to develop heart disease and 86 percent more likely to get colon cancer. More than 120 million Americans are classified as either overweight or obese. Obesity is epidemic, as Surgeon General David Satcher noted this week. And just as nobody in 1964 could conceive of restricting citizens' God-given right to smoke, few Americans today can imagine regulating something so personal as the way we exercise and eat. Today the fastest growing threat to health is obesity, yet most of us still consider fat a personal problem. Back then, smoking was the number-one health hazard, and yet the majority of Americans didn't consider cigarettes dangerous. For anyone who was around for the now-famous 1964 Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, this week's report by the current surgeon general - "Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity" - may seem like deja vu.
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