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Trends |
Obesity
COSTAS PANAGOPOULOS is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.
Address correspondence to the author; e-mail: costas@post.harvard.edu.
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Despite our society’s alleged preoccupation with image and the appearance and popularity of trendy diet programs, weight loss pills, gyms, every abdominal contraption imaginable, and as a last resort, surgery, the cases of obesity among Americans are on the rise. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines obesity as increased body weight caused by an excessive accumulation of adipose tissue (body fat) in relation to lean body mass. A person’s body mass index (BMI) is often used to gauge one’s physical condition. The CDC considers someone obese when his or her BMI is 25 or more.
In recent years, obesity has attracted considerable attention from scholars (Oliver and Lee 2005), policymakers and health officials, and concern has raised both the profile of the disease and its position on the national public policy agenda. A study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics from the period 1999–2002 found that 65
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The Growing Problem of Obesity |
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Perceptions and Reality |
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Nutritional Behavior |
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Children and Obesity |
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Conclusions |
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Appendix |
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