Reuters Full Focus

Recent figures confirm that the United States is the most obese country in the world, with 34% of the adult population classified as obese. This follows a trend noted in a report that obesity rates are climbing across the nation, prompting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call it "a major public health threat". Photographer Rick Wilking set out to document the story by breaking it down into sub-topics like an obesity research study, youth and teen obesity solutions, the “Biggest Loser” TV show phenomenon, bariatric surgery and a 500 pound proponent of "fat acceptance" who says obesity isn't always a bad thing. 40 PHOTOS

If I was religious I would say this is god´s revenge hahahaha!

Coca cola and Mc. donalds. American culture makes me sick!

Posted by CatchingBombs | Report as abusive
 

Since America has high unemployment, they should put the fat unemployed and prisoners to clean the streets, shores and collect garbage. The others should be sent to bootcamp, and then to fight the war in Afghanistan.

Posted by Gerport2001 | Report as abusive
 

Coke and McDonalds are American business and marketing…not culture

Posted by neorealist234 | Report as abusive
 

You may wish to calculate your BMI, using metric dimensions as well as inches and lbs, and find out more about recent scientific studies on the matter here: http://brainmindinstrev.blogspot.com/200 9/02/reduced-calorie-diet-body-mass-inde x.html

Restricted-calorie diets reduce weight and may even prolong life!

Posted by PeterMelzer | Report as abusive
 

1. Have you ever been to the Crimea in the summer? Please.
2. The US has more third world poor people living off government largesse with access to more food choices than anywhere else in the world.
3. Enough with the every six month predigested press release about bad fat americans. We get it. You hate americans and you have that rabid desire to control the choices of others. We get it.

Posted by kariju | Report as abusive
 

There’s someone at the office who has a belly that extends so far out, it looks like some creature from Aliens is gestating in it. What scares me is this man’s belly is slowly but surely growing bigger (extended). Years ago, a man at a company where I worked had such a distended belly that I guessed his wife customized his shirts (by cannibalizing the stomach area on one shirt and adding it to the same shirt, essentially buying two shirts to create a hybridized shirt that covered the stomach in similar fashion to how women’s shirts cover the bosom). I guess the point of my rant down memory lane is that I’ve seen, over the course of three decades, the United States go from chubby to outright sci-fi freaky outrageous when it comes to obese people. I have a growing sense of, how shall I say, ‘panic’ at this escalating health crisis. I mean, how will that man work if his belly is so big, he can’t stand up? Seriously, how can a belly grow out of control when the body looks ‘normal’ in weight? Is it a mass parasitical infection that health authorities have yet to uncover. These questions are the tip of a freakish iceberg of health and social problems caused by obsesity. People don’t realize that soft drink and junk food corporations, comprising over 90% of the economic activity in the U.S., are destroying this country from the inside out, quite literally and figuratively.

Posted by DisgustedReader | Report as abusive
 

The government is coming for your food, healthcare was first, now it is only natural to make you get into shape, to reduce the healthcare costs of us all. You either lose weight or you don’t get healthcare. It is coming. Same with smoking, etc.

Posted by Trooth | Report as abusive
 

“Coca cola and Mc. donalds. American culture makes me sick!”

The answer is less complex than God’s revenge, I’m afraid. It’s simply greedy individuals running these companies using economic power to exploit weak willed individuals, and parasitical shareholders who place share value over human lives.

Posted by DisgustedReader | Report as abusive
 

A power-station that is powered by lipo-suction clinics could go some way to solving this problem and producing cheap sustainable energy.
Alternatively compulsory treadmills for fatty’s joined to dynamos feeding in to the power grid, a good whipping should keep them running (possibly even just a burger, fries and sugar drink that are always just out of reach).

Posted by Gubernator | Report as abusive
 

Good job! Very nice!

Posted by FrVladimir | Report as abusive
 

I personally find obesity disgusting…There is absolutely no excuse for it. Even with a genetic predisposition to it; you can’t get obesewithout food.

Posted by FastBill | Report as abusive
 

So speaks someone who obviously has never had a weight issue. If you had, you would understand that there are other reasons for weight problems than eating fast food and junk food. I loved Gubernator’s use of the word “fatty’s.” First of all, it is offensive; furthermore, the form you used is a possessive. Go back to school.

Posted by musicwoman64 | Report as abusive
 

Musicwoman64, your posting is nonsense in that you state you love the term “fatty’s” and then go on to criticise it. You will find that an apostrophe can be used on slang (or other short) words where to omit the apostrophe would make the word look unusual. The usage of the word in the context can also be seen as possessive, a plural possive usage of the apostrophe would have likewise made the word look unusual. It could have been written as fatties, however as fatty’s is a commonly used version of the (slang) word fatty’s can be seen to be correct.
Further more incorrect grammar and spelling is a regular feature of comment and blog sites where people rapidly express their instant response to what they have just read and should probably be taken without comment or correction… or else you’d be commenting and correcting all day long.
Have a nice day, and while you’re at it you might like to ponder why it is ok to defend people who have surrendered their self-control? Humans are very resiliant beasts unless they have become entrapped by the victim mentality which is so pervasive in some sections of our society.

Posted by Gubernator | Report as abusive
 

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