Obesity

Abstract

Obesity is the most common and costly nutritional problem in the United States, affecting approximately 33 percent of adults.¹ Health care costs directly attributable to obesity amount to approximately $68 billion per year, and an additional $30 billion per year is spent on weight-reduction programs and special foods.² Nevertheless, treatment directed toward the long-term reduction of body weight is largely ineffective, and 90 to 95 percent of persons who lose weight subsequently regain it.^3,4 The level of energy storage, or fatness, at which the risk of morbidity increases is determined on an actuarial basis. The body-mass index (the weight . . .