American obesity rate continues to climb, report finds

• Obesity rates continue to climb in every state except Oregon, and government policies and actions offer little hope of reversing the trend, according to a new report Tuesday from the Trust for America's Health.
• "Across the board, we have every state failing to meet the national goal of 15 percent or less of the population being obese," Shelley Hearne, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, told a press conference.
• Added study co-author Parris Glendening, president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute: "About 119 million Americans are either overweight or obese.
• The number of obese American adults rose from 23.7 percent in 2003 to 24.5 percent in 2004.
• "While it is indisputable that individual behavior -- eating less and exercising more -- is critical to addressing obesity, the government and private industry also have important roles to play in setting policies and taking actions that make it easier to help people make healthy choices," he said.
• The report criticizes government policies as insufficient and too narrowly focused to have a significant impact on countering the obesity problem.
• "The bottom line is that there is a lot more that could and should be done to help people with nutrition and exercise," Glendening said.
• "We have a crisis in poor nutrition and physical activity in this country," Hearne added.
• "Obesity is arguably the gravest public health threat in the United States today," said Dr. David L. Katz, the director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
• Obesity is among the root causes of almost every major chronic disease you face, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breathing disorders and cancer, he added.
• "This new report indicating that we are not doing enough to control obesity should come as no surprise," Katz said.