Experts are plotting America's new diet

If you're an American, the statistics say you're out of shape -- and you don't need another study to tell you why. Your life is high in stress and calories and low in free time and physical activity.

With two-thirds of adults overweight and 25 percent barely moving, the shape of America is not good. But now, experts looking at the bigger picture are becoming more convinced it's not all your fault. Obesity, they say, is not really caused by that extra Oreo. It's the result of urban sprawl, a frenetic lifestyle and global food policy.

And for the first time, public health, zoning, transportation, fitness, education, government, legal and business interests have aligned in determination to stop the runaway train of national disrepair.

These experts envision a time when more people will walk briskly to their destinations amid trees and shops, when gaggles of school children will trot home from school, energized by their daily PE classes. They see homes built not in distant, sprawling subdivisions, but in walkable towns and cities. They see more people eating fresh vegetables and fruits at family tables and fewer guzzling giant sodas and 800-calorie burgers.

"Right now, we have to realize that as a society, 80 percent of people are not ready to change," says Michael O'Donnell, editor of the American Journal of Health Promotion. "But if there are things in our society that are causing this, we need to figure out what they are and change them." There is groundswell movement to do both.

In recent months, the Internal Revenue Service designated obesity as a disease and expanded a medical tax deduction for weight-loss programs. Many school districts have banned soft drinks and snacks in vending machines, even though it will cost them much-needed revenue. The state of Maine is considering a broad anti-obesity bill to add physical education classes and build more walking paths and bike routes. Under intense scrutiny, federal nutritional guidelines for school lunches and the food pyramid are being revised, with new versions set to come out in 2005.

"It's snowballing," says John Loving, public policy director for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers of America, of the movement. "It's finally in the public eye." Yet the all-out effort has detractors. Restaurants and the food industry are on the defensive, saying they are being unfairly blamed for diners' sedentary habits and big portions. Others say eating and exercising should not be the province of a meddlesome "nanny" government.

"Government has sunk its teeth into this issue with the gusto of the famished devouring a juicy steak," complained free-market analyst Daniel Hager, writing for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "Obesity should disappear as a public policy issue."

Still, frustrating examples bolster the position of those who believe obesity is beyond the reach of government. First, there is the puzzling paradox that the more nutrition information the public gets, the fatter it gets. The well-intended food pyramid backfired, with citizens gobbling too many carbohydrates. "Eat low-fat" advice led to misguided Americans pounding down boxes of "lite" treats in one sitting. Fickle exercise guidelines have confused the public.

An ambitious project uniting federal, state and nonprofit agencies, called "Healthy People 2000," failed to reduce obesity rates in a single state between 1990 and 2000. And government pressure for more rigid academic focus in local schools had the unintended consequence of cutting recess and physical education, the very things that experts say can keep children slim.

But the new alliance of public policy experts is determined to make more focused, sweeping changes to encourage active living. They point to successful government efforts to cut smoking rates, reduce drunk driving and increase seat belt use. Why can't obesity be fought -- and overcome -- the same way?

"Whatever gets the money gets the cures," says Chuck Corbin, professor of exercise and wellness at Arizona State University in Tempe. "There has never been a large-scale effort to promote a healthy lifestyle."

But unlike fighting tobacco or drunk driving, "The issue here is, we don't have a particular enemy. It's us against ourselves," says Richard Killingsworth, director of Active Living by Design at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.