The "Obesity Epidemic"

I was just pre-reading for tomorrow's biochemistry lecture on fatty acid synthesis, regulation, and mobilization, and was amazed yet again about how fat the U.S. is


We've all heard these stats but let's refresh ourselves:

~325,000 deaths in the US are obesity-related. Second highest preventable deaths next to Tobacco being #1

A child born in 2000 will have ~35% life-time risk of developing diabetes. That prevalence is THREE TIMES higher than current 2010 rates

In 2003, ~75 billion dollars were spent directly treating obesity-related diseases. ~100 billion dollars if indirect costs related to obesity are included


And what was absolutely shocking!
In a Dallas County study, 34% of residents had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 34%!



Oh, and here's the line-up for this year's Texas State Fair (courtesy of thebradsblog.com)

Another amazing creation from 2009 TX State Fair: Fried Butter

picture courtesy of Kevin Brown, MSNBC


Update! (10/5/2010) CNN.com also wrote about this year's TX State Fair.
I really want to try a fried frito pie now...