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The epidemic of overweight and obesity has become one of the most critical public health threats for New Yorkers and Americans. This epidemic has affected all age groups, boys and girls, men and women, and reached across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Obesity rates increased slightly during the 1970’s, but escalated for both children and adults during the 1980’s and 1990’s. While the rate of increase may be slowing among adults, there are no signs that the epidemic of childhood obesity is abating. In fact, overweight and obesity are increasing problems in young children, setting the stage for the obesity epidemic to continue far into the future. As a result, for the first time in history, children are predicted to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

By 2010, some have predicted that the root causes of the obesity epidemic poor nutrition and physical inactivity will become the leading underlying causes of preventable deaths in the U.S. The costs, both financial and personal, associated with obesity are also increasing, in part, because obesity leads to higher rates of many diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, asthma, arthritis, disability and a number of psychological conditions, including depression.