XVI. Confronting An Obesity Crisis

"Obesity is the fastest growing disease in America...
If we're really interested in holding down medical costs and improving the health of citizens, we have to do something about obesity." -- America's former Health and Human Services (USHHS) Secretary, Tommy Thompson. This statement is more emphatically true today.

Today, thirty-four percent of Americans are clinically obese. That translates to seventy-two million Americans who are now clinically obese with nearly the same number, seventy million, who are currently overweight. As U. S. News and World Report has stated: "We're now the heaviest population in the history of the world."

Understanding direct implications of oral and dental health in the obesity disease process can significantly help in confronting and preventing this very serious and widespread illness, here at home, and globally...