An entire industry developed around producing low-fat snack foods and consumers have gobbled them up in hopes 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, which thereby 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 per cent of our total calories 30 years ago to 34 per cent today. Obesity rates in the US remained relatively constant between 1960 and 1980. Today, more than half of all Americans are now considered overweight and Canadians aren't far behind. Meanwhile, incidence of heart disease, which a low-fat diet was originally thought to reduce, has yet to drop.