Eating Toward a Healthy Weight

We eat to live, yet our eating habits are often hazardous to our health. In America, where food is plentiful, many eat too much.

Americans have obsessions with food and obsessions with diets and thinness. We're hooked on supersized foods, yet we spend billions on diet plans and products, some of which are questionable or downright dangerous.

Today, more than 70 million Americans are overweight, accounting for 300,000 preventable deaths each year and $100 billion in health care costs, according to the American Obesity Association. In the past decade, the proportion of the population that is obese has increased from 25 percent to 32 percent - a near epidemic rise.

Complicated challenges remain to help people eat their way to health. Physicians and health educators need to continue to clarify healthy dieting. Government agencies and consumer health watchdogs need to continue to guard against the dangers of certain food supplements, which aren't magic bullets for weight loss.

"The health bureaucracy in Washington is very concerned about the increase in obesity and the risks of obesity," says Frances M. Berg, editor of Healthy Weight Journal, M.S., L.N., and an adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine. "However, they should also be warning us about hazardous weight loss products, eating disorders, dysfunctional eating and size prejudice."

Statistics show that 95 percent to 97 percent of people who lose weight, gain it back, and often they gain back more than they lost, Berg says. She believes doctors and health educators should be a part of the solution and should encourage their patients to eat normally, live actively and to keep a stable weight. Doctors should also warn against diets, which only cause more weight gain in the long run.

"We need to focus on changing habits," she says.

Berg says the key to weight loss is to eat enough food to nourish and satisfy and to exercise most days of the week. However, Berg says while many people lose weight successfully by good eating habits and exercise, most people cannot work themselves down to that lean, mean body weight.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Get at least 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week. This can be a great calorie burner. Aim for cardiovascular exercises, which get your heart pumping. Walking and running are great activities. Be sure to check with your doctor before starting an exercise program.
• Watch your weight loss. Safe weight loss is about 2 pounds a week.
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, which are low in calories and rich in fiber. Fiber makes you feel full.
• Skip the magic diet pills and save your money. They don't work.

Related Articles Obesity What Causes Obesity? Eating Disorders Eating Disorder Warning Signs Beware: That Glass of Holiday Cheer Packs Calories Positive Thinking: The Key to Weight Loss?

External Sources University of North Dakota School of Medicine American Obesity Association

This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.

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