Long Way to Go

Exercise, of course, is at the top of that list. But modern life has engineered most physical exertion right out of our lives. Heymsfield himself works on the 14th floor of his building. The doors to the stairwells are locked, he reports, and one needs special permission to use them.

"Everything is designed to curtail physical labor," he says. "We've experienced a huge reduction in activity."

It's such a problem that the Surgeon General has called for architects and urban planners to plan better, safer schoolyards and find ways to make more physical activity mandatory for all of us.

Though we are not slaves to our genes, Heymsfield is a proponent of the "thrifty gene" school of thought, which holds that fattening genes would have served us well in the harsh environments in which humanity evolved.

"We all have thrifty genes for sure," says Heymsfield. "After millions of years of famines and blights, as a species, we're highly thrifty."

Super-sized meals like this can pack 2000+ calories

Even once overweight people are aware of how much they are eating, America's "super-size" culture makes it hard to eat less and exercise more. Ultimately, however, Heymsfield thinks it will take a drug to end the obesity epidemic.

"When you have the flu, you don't feel like eating, right? So that means there's a biological mechanism that switches off," he explains.

"There's no reason to think we can't find that." And, Heymsfield suspects the answers might be just around the corner.

"There are drugs in the pipeline that will turn the appetite off. They will cost a fortune. There will be risks. But obesity will be a curable disease in 5-15 years."

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