Small steps can win the weight battle.

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

Americans continue to be some of the most overweight people in the world. Approximately 55% of the population is overweight and one in four is obese, William Dietz, director of nutrition and physical activity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicates. "Do we know why this is happening? No. But it's certainly the best judgment that weight problems are caused by modest daily increases in energy intake or decreases in physical activity."

In other words, it's the little things that people do (or don't do) over time that cause some of the biggest problems. For example, approximately 48,000,000 Americans are above a healthy body weight by about 20 pounds. Twenty pounds of weight is equal to roughly 70,000 calories. Spreading that over a year's time works out to 191 calories per day. So, if you reduced your intake by 191 calories, or incorporated some kind of exercise into your daily activity to help burn those calories, you could lose those excess 20 pounds...