strong association between excess fat and increased risk of five of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States: cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and liver disease. Doctors who focus on obesity are alarmed by the growing percentages of Americans who have it — 42 percent by the latest count. “I think it’s possible to simultaneously hold in your mind that the condition of obesity is concerning, while at the same time protecting the rights of the people who have it,” Brownell said. “You can think of many other parallels, like depression or alcoholism, where you don’t want the people who have these things to be stigmatized — there are clearly negative effects of that — but it doesn’t mean you discount the ravages of those diseases (View Highlight)