The fat of the land

The fat of the land

Scripps Howard News Service: Not only are we broke, we’re fat, too.

Larded in with the cascade of grim economic news comes a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics that finds that the American adults who are obese now outnumber those who are merely fat.

The NCHS, a branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 34 percent of Americans are obese while 32.7 percent are overweight. Throw in the nearly 6 percent who are extremely obese and that’s better than two out of three American adults.

Indicating a looming public-health problem, the prevalence of obese adults has more than doubled since 1980 while the percentage of those who are just overweight remained the same.

The weight issue is cropping up in American life in a curious way. With the Army planning to add 65,000 to its ranks by next year, the fact that it had to reject 47,447 potential recruits over the last four years because they were overweight becomes a problem. It’s planning a fat farm where potential soldiers would be whipped into shape.

The financial meltdown is pretty much out of our hands, but if we’re doomed to struggle economically for the near future, we can at least try to ensure that they are truly lean years.