Obesity can trim 10 years off life

Weighing too much may take as much as a decade off your life, according to a Lancet study of 900,000 people. Adults who are obese — about 40 or more pounds over a healthy weight — may be cutting about three years off their lives, mostly from heart disease and stroke. Those who are extremely obese, about 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight, could be shortening their lives by as many as 10 years. Being extremely obese is similar to the effect of lifelong smoking, says Richard Peto, one of the lead researchers and a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

Michael Thun, emeritus vice president of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. "What is particularly worrisome in the United States is that more than a third of people now qualify as obese, and a subset of people are becoming progressively more obese."

Bonnie - the results of this study should be not come as a surprise. We need to continue to push for fundamental changes starting with:

-More variety in the food we grow (i.e. vastly increase growing of fruits and vegetables)
-Reduce the amount of heavily processed food
-Alter the USDA Food Pyramid and Dietary Guidelines from being grain/milk-dominated to a more Modified
Mediterranean style
-Improve the national school lunch program
-Create transparency in restaurant food by putting nutritional labeling on the menus
-Further educate physicians and other health professionals who receive little nutritional training
-Severely curtail junk food/brand marketing to children
-Increase public awareness about nutritional prevention

There are many other detailed suggestions, but without the aforementioned, they do not hold much weight.