Advice on how to lose weight weighs heavily on us. Wherever we turn, we hear, see or read the depressing message that our health will suffer if we don't trim down.

At the population level, epidemic obesity is incontrovertibly established as a clear and all-but-omnipresent danger. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. And it's those who do so -- who play ping-pong with science -- who frighten the hell out of me.

I find that amongst those who do not believe obesity is a serious health problem, there are a few common misunderstandings and errors in logic.

Obesity is a chronic medical condition -- from a technical perspective, obesity fits any reasonable definition of disease.

Instead of sitting idly by, waiting for a famine or a jog, fat cells continuously send dozens of potent chemical signals to tissues throughout the body, including the brain and other organs.

The five worst fast food kids' meals according to a recent study by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

What conversations do you have--or avoid having--about weight? I believe there is no conversation we shouldn't be having about weight.

As of 2009, almost 3 in every 10 adults (26.7 percent) is now statistically obese, up from 25.6 percent in 2007, according to a new government report ...

Next year the nation's report card on obesity can be even worse, it can plateau, or it can begin to reverse itself. It will take more than a village, it will take every single one of us to be part of the solution.

I continue to be amazed, and outraged, that as a nation we continue to subsidize the food industry to kill us. To line our supermarket shelves with chemical food substances.

Addressing a health issue such as obesity requires more than simply public policy pronouncements and other forms of government "action." It needs and demands personal action.

Will sexual obesity and the obesity epidemic collide, resulting in a nation of overweight, solitary but safe sexual beings? Or one of thin people with strong convictions about mealtime but not sex.

In my public speaking, I routinely note that obesity remains the last bastion of socially acceptable prejudice in our society. I keep waiting for the statement to become obsolete, but it hasn't happened yet.

A decade ago, getting food behemoths to even think about supporting healthier fare was a very tough task. Yet today we're seeing a new wave both in government and business toward "healthy living policies."

Jamie Oliver is on a mission to change America's diet. After airing a four-hour TV series aimed at improving school lunches, he got the British gov't to allocate $1 billion to revitalize their school lunches.

Obese Americans face a very different reality--and it doesn't include a personal trainer, nutritionist and doctor on call at all times. It doesn't include a brush with fame or television exposure.

A PA college forces students with a higher BMI to take nutrition and fitness classes. Does this makes sense in the fight against obesity? Audra and Fe...