Last night I watched the documentary movie "Killer at large" which is about the rise of obesity in America, especially in children. I found myself thinking about the movie quite a bit today so I guess that means it is worth a thumbs up. I liked the fact that it tries to broaden the discussion on the causes of obesity from focusing simply on diet and exercise. It also looks at the heavy and misleading food advertising directed at kids, disfunctional food programs in schools, the effect of "no child left behind" legislation on reducing "elective" physical eduction programs, effects of stress on fat storage, the subversion of the USDA by the big food producers (executives from these companies and lobbyists sit in many of the USDA's executive positions), the muzzling of the US Surgeon General about the obesity epidemic and the need for action, the fact that you can get more caloric energy from junk food when you don't have alot of money, etc... In a nutshell, the movie helps us to move towards more of systems perspective on the causes of obesity versus simplistic stories about needing more willpower to eat less and exercise more.

One factoid that I found useful was the suggestion that if you are going to eat at MacDonald's that the appropriate portion size for an adult is a kid's meal. I told my son this today.

I also decided to research what the caloric intake for kids of various ages should be. The site weightlossresources.co.uk had this helpful table:

Age	Calories per day
	Boys	Girls
1–3	1,230	1,165
4–6	1,715	1,545
7–10	1,970	1,740
11–14	2,220	1,845
15–18	2,755	2,110
Adults	2,550	1,940

Is obesity an epidemic? You might want to use google to answer this question for yourself by looking at how the percentage of obese people has increased in each state since, say, the 50's. Does the comparison of obesity incidence maps accross time suggest that America is in the throws of an obesity epidemic (i.e., range and percentage of obesity is increasing on consecutive obesity maps of the U.S.)?