In the 1960s, 42 percent of Americans smoked. Ubiquitous cigarette ads, eventually banned in the US, promised that smoking made men more masculine and women sexier and thinner. Plus cigarettes tasted good. Now, in 2021, only 14 of the US population smokes but 42 percent of the population is obese. Have people just switched rooms on the Titanic? Is obesity the new smoking?

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In the 1960s, 42 percent of Americans smoked. Ubiquitous cigarette ads, eventually bannedin the US, promised that smoking made men more masculine and women sexier and thinner. Plus cigarettes tasted good.

Now, in 2021, only 14 of the US population smokes but 42 percent of the population is obese. Have people just switched rooms on the Titanic? Is obesity the new smoking?

Sure, the declining number of smokers risked cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). But today's obese people risk type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high LDL, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and many cancers. An improvement?

The Young Now Suffer From Obesity

Once upon a time, it was older people who were overweight. The pounds crept on as they aged. Not anymore. Today Millennials are on board to become the heaviest generation in history with a growing and disturbing incidence of obesity-related cancers according to medical journals. Multiple myeloma, colorectal, uterine corpus, gallbladder, kidney, and pancreatic cancer incidence are just some of the cancers now seen in young, obese people.

Almost a thirdof young people between 17 and 24 are too fat to join the U.S. military; they are categorically disqualified from military service says the CDC. What a testament to growing obesity among the young!

It Is the Doctor's Business

If you went to a doctor with a smoker's cough, and tobacco-related hypertension and rapid heart rate he or she would not ignore your smoking regardless of what brought you into the office. But if you went to a doctor with telltale obesity symptoms like hypertension, diabetes and obesity hypoventilationsyndrome, it is now said the doctor is "fat shaming" you if he or she mentioned your weight.

Obese people express outrage in social media postings when doctors have dared to mention their weight when they were in the office for... a sore throat or toe. The nerve! Patients may want to pretend weight and overall health are not connected but there is no such thing as"I am fat but fit" anymore than "I smoke but am fit" is valid.

It is now said that anti-weight stigma and "bias" from doctors leads obese patients' to avoid doctors and eat more. Couldn't the same be said of doctors' anti-tobacco bias effect on smokers who no doubt light up as soon as they leave the office after being admonished. But should a doctor not do his or her job to save a patient's "feelings"?

But doctor, I am hooked!

The words are no doubt uttered more by smokers than the obese but in both cases they are true. A few decades ago, cigarettes ads and vending machines were everywhere. Now ads for fattening, junk food and their vending machines are everywhere -- in banks, hardware stores, bookstores and transit stations. In both cases the marketing has produced oral addictions that people have to give in to and "feed" every few hours. In both cases, people experience acute withdrawal symptoms from their addictions when they want to stop -- and anger at those who point out their addiction. Including doctors.

Still, if quitting an addiction were not possible, there would be no ex-smokers or formerly obese people. We can and should resist obesity-causing junk food and its advertising. Forty-two percent of Americans once smoked and now 42 percent are obese. We are not better off.

Authors Bio:

Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by Random House. Rosenberg has appeared on CSPAN and NPR and lectured at medical schools and at the Mid-Manhattan Public Library.