This epidemic is not of an acute infectious type, but of a chronic, degenerative nature that plagues more and more of us each day. This epidemic grows steadily and influences every aspect of our health. Obesity is the epidemic that impacts nearly all of the major threats to our health. As a nation and a world, we are gaining stubborn weight that stays around and often refuses to go. Obesity itself is a risk factor in nearly every chronic illness that looms on the horizon. This collective weight is the price we pay for our modern lifestyles. Excess weight is a natural consequence of the habits we have developed as part of our current way-of-life. You cannot separate the consequence from the action. It is time to discuss the actions that are steadily increasing our weight and decreasing our ability to live as we would choose to live.