The Third Path: Prevention

Abstract

Since the onset of the obesity epidemic, treatment of the problem has received overwhelmingly more attention than has prevention. While this remains true today, interest in obesity prevention is slowly starting to attract increasing attention, probably because of the growing realization that it may be easier, less expensive, and more effective—at both the personal and public-policy levels—to change behavior so as to prevent weight gain, or to reverse small gains, than to treat obesity after it has fully developed.