Is there an obesity pandemic in most countries these days? According to Bruce M. King in an article published recently in American Psychologist, the answer is a definite yes. A professor of psychology at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, Dr. King has published over sixty papers on the neurobiology of feeding behavior and body weight regulation and is also a noted authority on human sexuality.
According to most available health statistics, obesity constitutes one of the main health problems facing most societies today. Using the most commonly accept definition of obesity as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2, over 502 million people are obese while another billion are overweight (having a BMI greater than 25 kg/m2). In the United States alone, 35.7% adults are obese while an additional 33.1% are overweight according to a 2010 survey with over 6% of Americans meeting the criteria for extreme obesity (BMI greater than 40 kg/m2).
One of the most unnerving aspects of the modern obesity epidemic is that it is a relatively new phenomenon.
To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.
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