Is it any wonder that America is also a country of dangerously overweight people?
According to a recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of adults characterized as overweight in the United States has jumped to an astonishing one-third of the population. Overweight in this case means being about 20 percent or more above a person's desirable weight. Since the figures for "desirable weight" have moved upward over the last decade or so, total poundage—even at 20 percent over—may be considerable.
So are the attendant health risks. Excess weight has been linked to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, adult-onset diabetes and some forms of cancer, among other diseases.
Once, when work and school and the grocery store were a two-mile hike away, Americans could afford the calories they consume. But not now, not when millions spend four or five hours a day in front of a TV set—along with a bag of chips, a bowl of buttered popcorn and a six-pack—and there's a car or two in every driveway.
"There is no commitment to obesity(肥胖)as a public health problem," said Dr. William Dietz, director of clinical nutrition at the New England Medical Center in Boston. "We've ignored it, and blamed it on gluttony and sloth."
If one definition of a public health problem is its cost to the nation, then obesity qualifies. According to a study done by Dr. Graham A Colditz, who teaches at Harvard Medical School, it cost America an estimated $68.8 billion in 1990. But what's wrong blaming it on gluttony and sloth? True, some unfortunate overweight people have an underlying physical or genetic problem. But for most Americans, the problem is with two of the seven deadly sins.
Losing weight is a desperately difficult business. Preventing gain, however, is not. Consumer information is everywhere, and there can be few adults who truly believe that hot dogs, fries, a soda and a couple of Twinkies make a good lunch. But they eat them anyway.
As more and more Americans became educated to the risks of smoking, more and more Americans gave up the habit. Now it appears that Americans need an intensive education in the risks of stuffing themselves and failing to exercise as well.
Given the seductiveness of chocolate and cheese, the couch and the car, that habit will be hard to break. But if an ounce of prevention can obviate a pound of fat, it is well worth the struggle.

单选题 The author sets up the standard of overweight people based on the fact that ______.

单选题 By saying "So are the attendant health risks", the author means ______.

单选题 What does William Dietz think of overweight?

单选题 Most Americans believe that ______.

单选题 In order to solve the overweight problem, the author suggests that everyone need to ______.