Weight Control: A National Obsession

Report Outline
Dieting and Health
Standards of Beauty
Weight Control Methods
Special Focus

Dieting and Health

For most Americans, Thanksgiving is a time for celebration, a day to spend with family and friends. It is also an excuse to stuff ourselves with turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and other traditional treats. Nothing is wrong, of course, with occasional holiday binging. But for many, overeating is a daily temptation.

The number of Americans who are overweight is largely a matter of conjecture, since experts disagree on how fat is too fat. One set of standards that has gained wide acceptance for correlating weight with height, sex and age was devised by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Using this guideline, 46 percent of adult Americans are at least 10 percent overweight. According to another source, 15 percent of adult men and 25 percent of adult women are 20 percent or more overweight.

Few overweight people are happy with the situation. Americans spend over $10 billion a year trying to lose weight and keep it off. At any given moment an estimated 20 million persons are thought to be on a “serious” diet. For years best-seller lists have been dominated by books by the latest diet and exercise gurus. Not surprisingly, when The San Francisco Chronicle asked 500 people what they feared most, 190 of them said “getting fat.”