INCREASED Stamina Keeps You Active All Day Long: Imagine doing all the "big" chores like mowing your lawn, cleaning out your garage and raking the leaves in your backyard – all in the same day!

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What’s Wrong With Being Overweight? Not long ago, obesity was seen mainly as a cosmetic problem. The purpose of dieting was to

improve your appearance, especially in time for bathing-suit season. Exercise was a way to tighten bulges around the stomach and thighs. As a last resort, there were diet doctors, although they were regarded with suspicion — even within the medical community — for popularizing fad diets and preying on people’s vanity.

In just the last few years, however, the medical view of overweight, or excess body fat, has undergone a sea change. No longer just a cosmetic problem, it is now known to be a public health problem of the same magnitude as smoking. Indeed, government statistics list overweight as the second-leading cause of preventable death in the United States, after smoking. By increasing the risk for a variety of serious diseases — for example, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, and several forms of cancer — overweight and its more severe form, obesity, cause 280,000–325,000 deaths in this country each year. For many people, losing weight is not an act of vanity; it’s a struggle for survival.

The dangers of excess weight have come to light at a time when the rates of overweight and obesity are soaring. More than half of all adults in the United States are overweight, and 26% are obese — an increase of more than 50% in the last three decades. Obesity rates are rising dramatically among children, too, an ominous sign for the future health of our population. 

Health Risks of Excess Weight It’s not news that being overweight is bad for your health, but only in the last few

years has research shown precisely how unhealthy it is. Compared to people of normal weight, those who are overweight have a 60% greater risk of dying within 10 years from all causes. For people with obesity (a BMI of 30 or higher), the risk of dying is more than twice as great as it is for people whose weight is normal. The biggest increase in risk is for death from heart disease, which is more than three times greater for overweight people and up to six times greater for people with obesity.

While being overweight or obese increases anyone’s risk for health problems, the danger is greater for some people than for others. For example, white people face a significantly higher risk for illness and death from excess weight than do blacks. And among blacks, the risk for illness and death from obesity is greater among men than women. Indeed, among black women, being overweight (as opposed to obese) doesn’t seem to add substantially to risk for disease or death. The reasons for these differences are unclear. Perhaps some groups of people — such as black women — have a genetic predisposition toward good health at a higher weight. But even people who are predisposed to health at higher weights will face a greater risk for illness and death if they are obese.