The Weight of the Nation

Surprising Lessons about Diets, Food, and Fat from the Extraordinary Series from HBO Documentary Films

By: John Hoffman, Judith Salerno, Alexandra Moss

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

America’s ever-expanding waistline—we see it, we hear about it, and we worry about it, but can anything be done about it? We know all the usual suspects: red meat, dairy, white flour, refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, a lack of exercise, too much television—the list goes on and on. It seems simple, right? Not really. There’s a lot more going on below the surface when it comes to what America is eating for dinner—and breakfast and lunch and in between.

People today work harder and take better care of their health than any previous generation. So how could two-thirds of us fail to measure up when it comes to eating right and exercising? HBO and the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine have joined together to bring you the nation’s foremost experts and definitive research on weight and weight loss.

The Weight of the Nation digs deep to uncover what’s going on in our minds, in our stomachs, in corporate America, on our farms, and in society’s overall love of food. The solution to America’s obesity epidemic will not come from quick-fix diets or a new national obsession with working out. The answer will only come from learning more about how our bodies conserve energy, why we seek out and consume certain foods, and how our world compels us to eat a lot more and move a lot less than we should.

The Weight of the Nation provides you with all the tools you need—and gives you the power to better understand your relationships with food and physical activity—so you can change the way you eat and move for the rest of your life.

©2012 Home Box Office, Inc., and the National Academy of Sciences (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“If we don’t succeed in turning this epidemic around, we are going to face, for the first time in our history, a situation where our children are going to live shorter lives than we do.” (Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health)