An entire industry developed around producing low-fat snack foods, and consumers have gobbled them up in the hope of losing weight and improving health. At the same time, more men and women have been dragging themselves to the gym to burn off extra fat, while others have turned to surgery and drugs in attempts to lose weight and appear younger and healthier. It's a booming business. Just last week, researchers writing in the journal Science reported that they've bred mice with a gene removed, a procedure that appears to inhibit the accumulation of body fat. The researchers say they hope to produce a drug that would suppress the gene in humans, enabling people to eat more without gaining weight.
Obesity is indeed a huge problem in North America.
On the surface, it appears we're winning the war on fat. Dietary fat consumption has actually dropped from more than 40 percent of our total calories 30 years ago to 34 percent today. Obesity rates in the United States remained relatively constant between 1960 and 1980. But since then, as dietary fat consumption has decreased, obesity rates have jumped from 14 percent to more than 22 percent. More than half of all Americans are considered overweight.