More than 40 percent of Americans classified as obese say they experience stigma on a daily basis.

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 80 %of adults and about one-third of children now meet the clinical definition of overweight or obese. More Americans live with “extreme obesity“ than with breast cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and HIV put together.

 Since 1980, the obesity rate has doubled in 73 countries and increased in 113 others. No country has reduced its obesity rate in all these years.

• A 2016 study that followed participants for an average of 19 years found that unfit skinny people were twice as likely to get diabetes as fat people, who were relatively fit.
• Americans spend more on dieting every year than on video games or movies.

For half a century, doctors and researchers have known two things that could have improved, or saved, millions of lives:

• Diets do not work. Not just paleo or Atkins or Weight Watchers or Goop, but all diets.
• Being fat does not necessarily mean being unhealthy.

Diet is the leading cause of death in the US, responsible for more than five times the fatalities of gun violence and car accidents combined.

60% of the calories Americans consume come from '"ultra-processed foods”, according to the British Medical Journal (2016).

Three separate studies have found that fat women are more likely to die from breast and cervical cancers than non-fat women, a result partially attributed to their reluctance to see doctors and get screenings/tests and timely diagnosis.

Doctors have shorter appointments with fat patients and have been reported to show less emotional rapport during the interaction.

Bioethicist Daniel Callahan said people should be made to feel ashamed of being obese. “People don’t realize that they are obese or if they do realize it, it’s not enough to stir them to do anything about it". He kicked his cigarette habit due to shame, so is applying the same psychology to o...