A victim of childhood obesity, I had been obese and out of shape for four decades; I have now been thin for over six years, and getting strong for the last three years. I think it’s time we took a candid look at obesity in America.

Obesity is neither a natural nor a healthy condition. Adult animals in the wild are fit. Food is rarely plentiful enough for many, if any, to get fat, despite the fact that every day they eat all they can get. If wild animals had as much food available to them as we do, many would be obese, as nature has provided a drive in all living things to eat what they can when they can as there will be times of scarcity. Survival in the wild depends on fitness; if an animal in the wild did get fat, it wouldn’t last long, an entire obese herd is impossibility.

For millions of us, work is sitting at a computer and talking on the phone; our desk drawers contain stashes of snacks we draw on during the day. We have available to us processed, inexpensive, fast food, junk food, and non-food throughout the day and for meals. Our natural drive is to eat all we can get and many do. The number of food commercials, particularly those aimed at children, young children, is astounding.

There has been a culture-wide acceptance of the condition of overweight and less-than-massive obesity: television ads, department store posters, TV news reporters, our friends, co-workers, family and the mirror all show larger people. Once hidden lairs in the basement or on the third floor, plus size sections are now prominently labeled; regular mannequins have been replaced with larger sized figures to represent the larger sized customers, and plus sized mannequins have been created. For the first time ever, junior sizes are available in plus size.

In school, I was somewhat of a freak at 135 pounds in the sixth grade, in 1962, compared to my classmates who hovered in the nineties; I was180 pounds in high school, while most of the other girls fretted over pushing 115. When was the last time you watched a high school dismiss? The acceptance of obesity, both personally and societally, has now become the norm. The percentage of Baby Boomers (my generation) at buffet restaurants or in fast food lines who are obese is in the 60% plus range. Yet, our concept of obesity is skewed; when we think obese, we think fat lady in the circus size, when the truth is that a person who is 30 percent overweight is obese; a woman who should weigh 135 is obese at 175 pounds. The majority of obese people, including many morbidly obese (100 pounds over normal) consider themselves overweight, but not obese.

The insurance companies, medical community, state and federal government all are sounding the alarm about the obesity epidemic. Increasingly the focus is on childhood obesity, for two reasons: first, it may already be too late to take on the adult obese, currently a clear majority in this country, and secondly, while adult obesity is tossed around verbally and in print in a politically correct manner as to show appropriate concern, it is actually a taboo subject, and for anyone in government to tackle it head on is certain political suicide. But how can you not love a candidate who is pushing to save the children?

Another challenge facing government is that more than a decade of tacit approval of a population annually getting exponentially more overweight and obese has sanctioned obesity. Our economy has grown around it. Fast food, processed foods, an entire diet industry (over 30 billion dollars a year), a newly rocketing plus size clothing industry: despite any saber rattling of government, industry, and the medical community, if any significant portion of the obese population were to reach normal weight it would create havoc with the American economy.

Long term overweight and obesity has medical consequences, and a high price tag. As the Baby Boomer generation ages overweight and obese, and young adults embrace an obese culture, the costs to government provided health services and supplements, and the related problems will increasingly effect every American socially and financially.

It is time for all Americans to take a candid look at obesity and the effects it has on our society and on the future of our nation.

Francine Gail Hemway is a former school teacher and district superintendent. Her first book, Beauty and the Yeast Beast: from Fat to Fairy Tale, was a presentation of the theories that led her to lose over 186 pounds without surgery and a program to follow to obtain similar results. Her latest book, The Big, Bad, O: the Brutality of Obesity, offers an honest perspective of the state of obesity in America and warns that the ostrich mentality of the U.S. in regards to the broad social and economic implications of obesity must change.