Americans Take Excess to New Heights
From Times Wire Reports
For those able to stomach a tidbit of health news after ringing in the new year, more Americans are getting fat and drunk each year, with sometimes deadly results, researchers said.
More than one in five American adults could be classified as obese in 2001, up almost 6% from the year before. And more than one in four Americans engage in bouts of binge drinking -- defined as five or more drinks at one sitting with the goal of getting drunk -- up 35% from 1995.
The studies, based on a telephone survey of 200,000 adults, were published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
