The verdict on obesity is in: Americans are fat and getting fatter. A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that one in every three citizens is obese, and two in three Americans are overweight. These numbers, already up in previous years, have reached an all-time high.
One culprit of the nation's width is its diet culture, says Judith Ruskay Rabinor, Ph.D., director of the American Eating Disorder Center in Lido Beach, New York. The emphasis we place on being unnaturally thin pushes people into dieting. But any diet, argues Rabinor, eventually backfires and packs pounds on the people trying to lose them.
"Diets are always looked at as solutions, but I think they are really part of the problem," says Rabinor. The only way to successfully lose weight, she continues, is to avoid quick fixes and learn to eat in a more healthy way every day.
