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Kim Johnson ReportingYou've heard it before and we'll tell you again what doctors are saying: Americans are fatter than ever, adults and kids alike. It's now become a 100 billion dollar a year problem.
Doctors who specialize in obesity are meeting in Salt Lake this weekend. They're trying to formulate an attack on what has become a life-threatening epidemic in this country.
Doctors know why we're getting fat. Too many of us are still eating super-sized portions of fatty, highly processed foods. We're still not getting enough exercise. Obesity rates among kids and teens have doubled over the last twenty years.
Denise Bruner M.D., Bariatrician: "We're seeing children at age five who are diabetics when it was unheard of thirty years ago for a child to have diabetes related to his being overweight."
While our children "outweigh" their counterparts in other developed countries, the problem is spreading just as processed fast foods are going global.
Denise Bruner: "In other developed countries there is less obesity, although the rate in rise in obesity in developed countries parallels ours."
Bruner says parents are in denial, assuming their pleasantly plump child will slim down with age. She says they don't realize the serious health threat.
Denise Bruner: “They have a false perception that aids or drug addiction is a greater threat to their children than is obesity."
Bruner applauds the recommendation to remove soda pop from schools’ vending machines, and says as a nation we've got to wean our kids off sugary fruit drinks and fast food, and we've got to get them off the couch -- a change that has to begin at home.
Doctors say fad diets don't work, that there's only one true, healthy way to slim down: Limit your calories and exercise. It also helps to drink plenty of water.
