Obesity increases cancer risk according to the NY Times. More younger American's are overweight resulting in future costly health problems. True, many children do not get the same level of activity many adults once had. This may be partially due to how we bring up our children, what we allow them to eat and how we use food as a method to keep them busy when they are very young. Snacking habits are part of the problem in the USA, since many of the snacks our children have eaten have poor nutritional value. When these habits visit countries like Brazil, as reported in an earlier blog post this year, Weight gain and diseases such as diabetes and other weight related health issues become more common in those countries as well. The NY Times recently reported that the excess weight is also increasing the risk of developing cancers of the esophagus, liver, gallbladder, colon and rectum, upper stomach, pancreas, uterus, ovary, kidney and thyroid; breast cancer in postmenopausal women; meningioma and multiple myeloma. With health care costs as high as they are, perhaps public policy needs to offer better systemic approaches to how and why we have become so unhealthy and how with some gentle guidance we can reverse these trends. Obesity cannot be solved with dieting alone. We need to eat better, get more exercise and stop using food as a way to keep our children busy which seems to result in poor eating habits that follow us into adulthood. Do we really need all those snacks? American's must also eat portions that are more appropriate. There are also benefits to periodic fasting, since eating three meals a day has developed out of the industrial age, however, our systems may need to occasionally fast for optimal health. Check out the NY Times article below The Growing Toll of Our Ever-Expanding Waistlines By JANE E. BRODY NOV. 13, 2017 I hope you’re not chomping on a bagel or, worse, a doughnut while you read about what is probably the most serious public health irony of the last half century in this country: As one major killer — smoking — declined, another rose precipitously to take its place: obesity. Many cancer deaths were averted after millions quit lighting up, but they are now rising because even greater numbers are unable to keep their waistlines in check. Today, obesity and smoking remain the two leading causes of preventable deaths in this country. Read more