My Easy Weight Loss Tips

Americans are just as likely to be overweight today as they were in the 1960s, according to a recent report from the federal Centers for Disease Control. Neither jogging, nor Lean Cuisine, nor health spas, nor Jane Fonda, nor "lite" beer, nor two decades of nagging from the federal health agencies appears to have done much to reduce the national prevalence of fat.

Today, about 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women are "significantly overweight," according to the CDC, which concluded the levels were virtually unchanged from the early 1960s.

Moreover, obesity continues to plague minorities and the poor in disproportionate numbers. While 25 percent of white women were technically fat, 44 percent of black women were overweight. Also, the lower the socioeconomic status, the greater the percentage who are overweight - mainly because the poor rely more on high-calorie foods.

The CDC defines as "significantly overweight" a person weighing 20 percent more than his or her desired weight, which is tabulated for height and based on a system known as the body mass index.

According to the CDC definition, for example, a person would be technically overweight if his desired weight was 145 pounds and he tipped the scale at 174 pounds.

Health and nutrition experts say the easy weight loss and health craze of the 1980s appears to have involved only a limited subset of Americans, who did all the aerobics and ate all the leaner "lite" foods, while the rest of the country, appears to have sat around watching the tube, and eating hamburgers and Ding-Dongs.

Certain segments of society got into spas and exercise, and certain groups got into lower-calorie foods, but the changes did not permeate society.

Many Americans, for example; continue to live sedentary lifestyles. In Oklahoma and New York, more than two-thirds of all adults fail to exercise for at least 20 minutes three times a week, as recommended by many fitness gurus.

The findings were part of a report card on American health tabulated by federal health officials. In 1979 the government set 17 goals for the nation to reach by 1990: Real progress was made on only six.

While the country improved its overall cholesterol levels and did a better job at labeling food, it made no measurable progress in losing weight or cutting out salt. There was also little progress on eradicating iron-deficiency anemia in pregnant women and in educating people about good nutrition and weight loss.