OBESITY has overtaken smoking as the main cause of death in the United States, it emerged yesterday.

“The increase in America’s waistlines is shrinking our lifelines,” Tommy Thompson, the Health Secretary, said. “We’ve just gotten too darn fat. Americans need to understand that overweight and obesity are literally killing us.”

Official statistics, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association yesterday show that poor diet and physical inactivity killed 400,000 Americans in 2000, the most recent year for which data is available, and accounted for 17 per cent of all deaths. In the same year, tobacco-related illnesses killed 435,000, or 18.1 per cent. The trends suggest that obesity has now over taken smoking as the main cause of death. While the number killed by gross fatness has increased by 33 per cent in the decade since 1990, the number killed by tobacco smoke has declined by 1 per cent.

Nearly two thirds of Americans, or 129.6 million people, are obese. Chronic overweight cost America $117 billion in 2000, according to the Surgeon-General. The US Government will spend $440.3 million (£244 million) next year on obesity research, a 10 per cent increase on this year.

The US Health Department has taken the unprecedented step of making three television advertisements to suggest ways of losing weight. They are part of a wider campaign to encourage Americans to make small steps towards more exercise and healthier eating.

In one advert a puzzled man discovers two fleshy objects by a staircase and is told: “They are love handles. People often lose them on the stairs.” In a second, a boy who finds a fat belly in the sand says: “Somebody probably lost it walking on the beach.” In a third, a shopper who finds a double chin says: “Someone must have lost it snacking on fruit and vegetables.”

The Health Department did not pay for making the advertisements, which were donated by an advertising company, and is hoping that broadcasters will show them free.

Health experts predicted that the campaign will have little impact. Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition and Public Health at New York University, said: “If the Government said: ‘You really ought to cut back on soft drinks and juice drinks,’ those lobbyists would go berserk. They don’t want to take on the food industry.”

Richard Atkinson, president of the American Obesity Association, said: “If we just count on the American population to change their eating habits and exercise habits, we’re going to continue to have obesity.”

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