The obesity epidemic is all over the news - on television, on the Internet, in magazines and newspapers. We read about it

as our hand dives into a potato chip bag, as we help ourselves to another helping of what isn’t helping us. We look at

others and think ‘Wow, they should consider losing weight.’ We look at ourselves and think we could lose some weight.

We know our hearts would pump better, that our blood would course through our bodies better, that we might not get

diabetes and that we could get rid of it if we do have it--if we just weren’t so heavy. We debate over what the best method

might be. We review diets and try some of them. And how does that work for us?

Everybody who’s ever gone on a diet, or knows someone who’s been on a diet, raise your hand. Anyone who’s been told

by a doctor that her heart disease, or diabetes, or high blood pressure is related to being overweight, raise your hand.

Those who have observed items in their shopping carts – or someone else’s shopping cart – that certainly do not help one

to maintain a healthy weight, raise your hand. I’m visualizing a lot of hands in the air.

Every year, Americans spend $1.3 billion on weight reduction products and services: diet foods, diet programs, diet

products – every week comes a new promise of some magical way to remove in a short time what it took a long time to

create, our overabundant selves. But if there were a magic potion, a super pill that removed excess weight in a healthy

way and kept it off, wouldn’t we all know about it? Wouldn’t we be standing in mile-long lines waiting to buy it? The thing is,

such a potion doesn’t exist. There is no ‘easy’ way. And we of this world are becoming more obese by the minute. We are

incurring serious diseases initiated by obesity and yet we deny that this is happening, and our denial is killing us.

According to a CDC study released in Sept. 2006, 30% of U.S. adults 20 years of age and older – over 60 million people –

were obese, almost double the 1991 number. In 1991, no states had obesity prevalence rates at or above 20 percent,

compared to 44 states in 2005. What we are seeing now is scary. As of the January 2009 survey 34% of us were obese!

What’s wrong with this picture? When millions of people who have a great deal of food at their disposal are sick and dying

of obesity-related illnesses and millions of people who don’t have enough food are starving and dying as well, what does

that tell us? I think it tells us that we’re out of balance; that we have lost our way. It’s time we woke up and took a look at

what’s really going on. Obesity has major adverse health consequences!

In the last 25 years we have witnessed an alarming increase in the incidence rate and distribution of Type 2 diabetes. It

used to be seen almost exclusively in older, obese folks. Now, it is an unprecedented problem for children as young as

age 6 and is common in adolescents and young adults. The same factors leading to adult diabetes are thought by most

experts to be responsible for the rapid increase of diabetes in the young: increasing obesity due to poor eating and lack of

Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of global death by disease. Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related

causes. Every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes.

Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide and is expected to affect 380 million by 2025. What is frightening

is 20 years ago when the cluster of diseases that now make up the ‘metabolic syndrome’ got underway this number was a mere 30 million.

Each year 3.8 million deaths are attributable to diabetes. An even greater number die from cardiovascular disease made

worse by diabetes-related lipid disorders and hypertension.

On average, people with type 2 diabetes will die 5-10 years before people without diabetes, mostly due to cardiovascular

disease. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in diabetes, accounting for some 50% of all diabetes

fatalities, and much disability.

They say that up to 80% of type 2 diabetes is preventable by adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical activity.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. In diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin or the

cells ignore the insulin. Insulin is necessary for the body to be able to use sugar. Sugar is the basic fuel for the cells in the

body, and insulin takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into

cells, it can cause two problems:

Today, almost 24 million children and adults in the US have diabetes; and almost one third of them do not know it.

Diabetes can be especially hard on women. The burden of diabetes on women is unique, because the disease can affect

both mothers and their unborn children. Diabetes can cause difficulties during pregnancy such as a miscarriage or a baby

born with birth defects. Women with diabetes are also more likely to have a heart attack, and at a younger age, than

women without diabetes.

"This disease is a silent killer," says Cathy Tibbetts, president of health care and education for the American Diabetes

Association, based in Alexandria, Virginia. "Though 8.7 percent of American women have diabetes, a third of them don't

realize they are affected." In fact, The American Diabetes Association estimates that nearly one-third of people who have

type 2 diabetes don't know it. If the condition is left uncontrolled, the consequences can be life threatening and expensive.

In 2007 there were 264,000 diabetes related deaths and the total annual economic cost of diabetes in the USA in 2007

was estimated to be $174 billion.

The United States is not the only country experiencing an epidemic of diabetes. According to a study by South Korean

researchers, the most common form diabetes, type 2, has reached epidemic proportions in Asia and it affects people at

even younger ages than in the West. Asian healthcare systems are in danger of being overwhelmed by this phenomenon.

Again, what ‘they’ say we're looking at here are simply the results of overeating and sedentary lifestyles. Researchers

suggest, and I agree, that preventive action is paramount. Governments have been called upon to structure plans

incorporating preventative action. I can only add that if we do not recognize the contributing effects of our deteriorating

environment, those plans will be clear as mud. Unless we make major environmental course corrections, the diabetes