There is a growing public health crisis that is global in scope, and it isn't another emerging infectious disease. It concerns being overweight and the adverse health consequences of obesity, which include diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. To sketch the extent of this problem, we begin with the United States, an appropriate starting point because US dietary styles and food habits have been exported so widely around the world.

In 1998, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States found that 97 million US adults (55% of the US population) were considered obese or overweight. The Surgeon General issued a “Call to Action” on the obesity problem, but it drew a lackluster response from the responsible federal agencies, and Americans continued to consume an average of 3800 calories per person per day, or about twice the daily requirement. It is now estimated that over two-thirds of US adults are overweight. Last year, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni appointed an agency-wide task force to develop recommendations for coping with the epidemic, and perhaps that gives room for some encouragement.