ABSTRACT
As 401(k)s and Wall Street’s fat cats slim down, there is no denying that the waist size of Americans continues to hit record highs. Recent data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) indicates that in 1991 only four states had obesity prevalence rates of 15-19% and no states exceeded 20%. By 2004, however, seven states had obesity rates of 15-19%, 33 states had rates of 20-24%, and nine states had rates that exceeded 25%. In fact, by 2000 “the human race reached a sort of historical landmark, when for the fi rst time in human evolution the number of adults with excess weight surpassed the number of those who were underweight” (Caballero 2007). This has led many researchers to conclude that we are witnessing a domestic as well as international obesity epidemic (Flegal, Carroll, Ogden & Johnson 2002; Mokdad et al. 2003; Ogden et al. 2006). Indeed, President Obama acknowledged the problem in his January 27, 2010 State of the Union Address when he praised his wife for “creating a national movement to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity and make our kids healthier” (Obama, 2010).
