Americans are in a pickle over food. Just as a decade of financial optimism has given way to the shocked discovery that people are poorer than they thought they were, so an era of working out in gyms and low-fat dieting has been mocked by reports of the nation's shocking chubbiness and other food-related forms of ill-health. The figures on fat are striking. The proportion (if not the proportions) of Americans who are obese rose from 15% in 1991 to 27% in 1999. Youngsters show the same trend: 10% of them are now obese. Add in the merely overweight and you cover 60% of American adults and 25% of children. David Satcher, who retired as surgeon general in February, has estimated that obesity contributes to 300,000 of the 2m deaths each year in America. Treating diet-related conditions such as cancer and heart disease cost $117 billion in 2000.
展开▼
