The official death toll for those who perished in the bombing of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, is now set at slightly over 2,800. Adding those who perished in the Pentagon bombing, the total figure is between 2,900 and 3,000. The sudden, violent loss of people of all ages shocked the United States and the world. Multiple billions of dollars have been spent since to investigate how the evil perpetrators accomplished their wicked deeds and on preventative measures that will hopefully guarantee that such horrible loss will not be repeated.

But this isn't an article about terrorism. It's about a threat that is guaranteed to take the lives of between 100 and 200 times as many as died on that fateful day last year. Because these deaths will not occur suddenly, because there are no violent visual images associated with them that can be broadcast repeatedly to a TV-oriented public, most people will be completely unaware of their happening.

How do I know that? Because that many people died last year from the same epidemic, and most of us never knew it.

The problem is obesity. A staggering 61 percent of American adults are overweight or obese. The United States officially views obesity as the number two cause of preventable death (behind smoking). So serious is this problem, and so fatal are its consequences, that one would expect it to be on the lips of every American.

Smoking-related illnesses kill 400,000 people a year, and smoking is a high profile "public enemy." Yet conservative estimates place the number of deaths related to obesity at 300,000. Two highly respected public health doctors wrote an article that was published in 1993 that stated a high-end estimate of over 582,000 (J.M. McGuiness and W.H. Fouge, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States," JAMA, 1993, Nov. 10:270(18): 2207-12). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) place the high-end estimate at 587,000.

It's not that people are completely unaware. The constant bombardment by television and print advertising about weight-loss products and programs indicate that there's a colossal market.

Indeed, over $30 billion is spent every year on these products and/or programs. Why are Americans overweight? Critics of the United States might be quick to point out how soft people have become. There's some truth to that perception. Eric Schlosser has written a best-selling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. According to Schlosser, Americans spend more money eating in restaurants than they do on higher education or new cars. And most of those "restaurants" are of the fast-food variety. What Americans eat "has changed more in the last 40 years than in the previous forty thousand" (George Will, "Supersize Menace," 2002, Washington Post Writer's Group).

Not an American problem alone

Before we condemn the Americans, we need to take a look at the problem of obesity in the rest of the world. It is not, as the facts bear out, just "an American problem." The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) reports: "The prevalence of obesity is rising to epidemic proportions at an alarming rate in both developed 'westernised' and less developed countries around the world" (www.iotef.org, emphasis IOTF).

How prevalent is it? IOTF research reveals obesity has increased between 10 and 50 percent in Europe in the past decade. Obesity has more than doubled in the United Kingdom in the same time frame. Regional studies of African countries' higher socioeconomic groups reveal a high prevalence of obesity. Data is difficult to come by from the Middle Eastern countries, but the limited information available shows that the problem is serious-higher in Middle Eastern women than women in most Western countries. It's a significant problem in the wealthier Caribbean nations. Brazil reports the problem as increasingly common-surprisingly among lower income groups. Obesity in Japanese men has doubled since 1982.

The IOTF reports that obesity exists in nearly 40 percent of Yugoslavians and in approximately 30 percent of Greeks. The problem afflicts more than 20 percent of Romanians and Czechs. England, Finland, Germany, Scotland and Slovakia are not far behind.

Even countries that have difficulty with providing enough food for their citizens are experiencing a significant problem with overweight and obesity. The number of overweight people in Ghana, for example, is only slightly less than the number of those who are underweight.

How can this be true? Sometimes culture is a factor. Weight gain is associated with an image of prosperity and success in some countries. Obesity is a sign of high social status and prosperity in the Polynesian and Micronesian societies of the Western Pacific region. "In 1991 for example, over 75% of urban males in Western Samoa were classified as obese" (ibid., emphasis IOTF).

Some of the same factors that have led to American obesity contribute to the problem the world around. The more modernized a country becomes, the more its citizens own cars; and the people often travel only short distances. They do less walking or cycling. At home, the availability of modern appliances and ready-made foods has significantly decreased manual labor. Also, many of those ready-made foods are high in calories and fat.

In the workplace, many jobs have become more sedentary, requiring less physically demanding labor. In public places, there are more automatic doors, elevators and escalators, so people climb stairs less often.

Perhaps one of the greatest contributors is the fact that more and more people live in urban centers. With cities comes crime, which prevents people from going out for exercise and/or leisure activities. There are also metabolic, genetic and psychological contributors to obesity. (These factors are conclusions drawn from international research done by the American Obesity Association and reported on its Web site, www.obesity.org.)

How it kills

How can obesity cause death? Obesity contributes greatly to the risk factor of a number of illnesses. Some that you probably would guess are: Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and osteoarthritis. Some that you might not be aware of include: birth defects, several types of cancer, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic venous insufficiency, daytime sleepiness, deep vein thrombosis, end stage renal disease, gallbladder disease, gout, impaired immune response, impaired respiratory function, infections following wounds, infertility, liver disease, low back pain, several obstetric and gynecological complications, generalized pain throughout the body, pancreatitis, sleep apnea, strokes, surgical complications and urinary stress incontinence (ibid.).

Actually, this is only a partial list, as various researchers reported a host of additional problems. Of course, there are attendant psychological problems, such as lower self-esteem (in cultures that do not prize obesity) and clinical depression.

The staggering number of deaths caused or greatly contributed to by obesity is shocking in itself. Let's translate "61 percent of adult Americans" into actual numbers, so we have an idea of the scope of the problem. The NIH estimates that 120 million U.S. adults are overweight or obese. For perspective, that compares with 800,000 to 900,000 Americans who are infected with HIV, 9 million with cancer, 16 million with diabetes and 26 million with heart disease.

It's difficult to get a handle on the total cost, because studies report only a fraction of the total amount. But a 1998 study estimated the direct medical costs at $51.64 billion, and the NIH estimates that the cost is $100 billion (NIH statistics quoted by the American Obesity Association).

Biblical warnings of disease

World News and Prophecy keeps track of trends and reports them in the light of Bible prophecy. How does this problem, called "an escalating epidemic" by the World Health Organization, fit into the framework of prophecy? Two major end-time prophecies warn of disease epidemics so great that they threaten a large percentage of the world's population. Revelation 6 contains the often-called "four horsemen of the apocalypse" prophecy.

Jesus told John to write: "So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth" (verse 8).

Jesus Himself said: "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places" (Matthew 24:7). He added these chilling words: "All these are the beginning of sorrows" (verse 8), meaning that they precede the crisis at the close of the age of mankind. They don't constitute the actual crisis in themselves, horrible though they are.

Typically, disease epidemics are triggered by famine and food shortages. Could the physical weakness caused by obesity be a precursor to even more serious problems caused when widespread food shortages occur?

Our booklets The Book of Revelation Unveiled and You Can Understand Bible Prophecy both contain additional information and explanations about these key prophetic references.

Obesity incidence in children

One of the most serious trends in the American population is the rapid rise in percentage of children and adolescents who are obese. From 1976 to 1980, 7 percent of American children aged 6 to 11 were obese. The figure was 5 percent for those between the ages of 12 and 19. Those statistics shot up to 13 percent and 14 percent by 1999. The increase is alarming and portends an accompanying increase in disease and health care costs (American Obesity Association).

Again, it isn't just an American problem: 23 percent of school-age children in Tonga were considered obese in 1986 and 40 to 50 percent of 10-year-olds in Malta are overweight or obese. About 30 percent of children in the same age group in Munich, Germany, and Verona, Italy, are obese. The numbers are 20 percent for children this age in Nancy, France, and 15 to 20 percent for the same aged youth in the United Kingdom and Sweden. Approximately 20 percent of the 10-year-old girls in Hungary are obese, while the number runs closer to 40 percent among the boys (ITOF).

A way out

We noted above that some $30 billion is spent each year by Americans on dietary products and programs, as they attempt to combat overweight and obesity. Unfortunately, the immediate tendency of human nature is to choose the costliest solution. Not only is it expensive to purchase these products and programs, but also there are a number of serious side effects from ingredients many of them use.

The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns consumers to avoid any products that contain aristolochic acid. It damages the kidneys and has caused certain types of cancers. The products may list this ingredient as "aristolochia," "bragantia" or "asarum."

Some herbal weight-control products use ephedra, also known as ma huang. Many safety issues cloud this ingredient's effectiveness too. It's been reported to cause nausea, dizziness, headache, skin rash, nervousness, moodiness, depression, heart racing, breathing difficulty, vomiting, blurred vision, addiction, disorientation, low blood pressure, gastrointestinal problems, chest pains, heart palpitations-even death.

The FDA has recalled all products containing another ingredient, tiratricol. It's also known as triiodothyroacetic acid or TRIAC. It's actually a powerful thyroid hormone and may cause heart attacks or strokes (source for FDA information: www.obesity.org/subs/consumer alert/).

Overweight and obesity have to be taken seriously. People would be wise to begin with a physical checkup. Genetic and metabolic factors cannot be changed, and we don't mean to minimize them or to imply that obesity is easily controlled by everyone. But even the effect of these factors can be lessened in many instances. Psychological and environmental factors can definitely be controlled.

The cheapest and most effective solution is to reverse some of the curses of modernization: return physical activity to your normal life. It may not be practical to walk or cycle instead of driving a car, and it may not be safe to go out alone if you live in a large city. But most people can take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator. And there are numerous types of inexpensive exercise equipment, which can help put back into your life the good things that labor-saving "benefits" have taken away.

Think about it: 100 to 200 times as many Americans will die in 2002 from obesity as died on that terrible 11th day of September 2001. Many more around the world will die from the same cause. And, for most people, it's a totally preventable cause of death... WNP