In December 2008, the Mayor of Philadelphia signed a law requiring most chain restaurants to begin posting the caloric content of the meals they serve beginning in January 2010. The law follows similar legislation in New York City, as well as California, and applies to restaurant chains?including coffee shops, ice cream parlors and convenience stores?with a total of 15 or more stores, whether in the city or elsewhere, according to a Dec. 18 news article by the Associated Press.



The law is evident of not only a nationwide obesity problem, but an ever growing worldwide statistic, in which the waistlines of more and more people are falling victims to the rampant availability of high-calorie, fatty, and sugary foods?all while ignoring the potentially debilitating health problems inside their own bodies.

In England, for example, a recent study there concluded that obesity levels have almost doubled over the last 14 years. That means one in four (or 24 percent) of men and women were considered obese in 2007 compared with the 16 percent of women and 13 percent of men in 1993.

The report also showed that men and women greatly underestimated how much exercise they needed to do to keep healthy, while few knew the limit on how much alcohol they should be drinking each day.

This lack of self-awareness is something that obviously stretches to our borders as well, and is apparent in the number of fad diets that have come out in recent years. You know which ones I'm talking about?everything from Seattle Sutton's to the South Beach Diet. You might as well call them the diets that stretch from the far Northwest to the tip of the southeast! But lets face it, if you want to lose weight, lose fat, and lose inches you have to stick with something that works, and frankly, these fad diets might be wrong for you.

Whether or not these new calorie-awareness menus work remains to be seen, but I'm willing to bet that if people want to address their weight issues, it has to start with them. And sometimes starting your own diet program is the hardest part.