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Research shows that people gain weight because they take in more calories than they expend. They lose it when they expend more than they take in. In other words, in order to lose weight and keep it off, you need to watch what you eat and exercise.

It's time again to make that famous New Year's resolution: I'm going to lose weight. Time to stock up on vegetables and frozen diet entrées. Buy a gym membership. Sign up for a program such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. Buy the latest best-selling diet book.

We all know how important it is to eat a balanced diet, to exercise, to not gain excessive weight. We know the health dangers associated with obesity-increased risk for hypertension, diabetes and cancer; joint aches; increased stress on the cardiovascular system; low energy; difficulty breathing. Many of us have gone on diets in the past, even lost some weight for a little while.

Yet here we are, after the holidays, 20 or 50 or 100 or more pounds above our healthy target weight, wondering if we'll ever be able to get it off and keep it off. Hoping, despite everything we've learned about weight loss and management, for a quick fix to magically melt away the pounds and keep them off forever.

In 1999, more than 60 percent of adult Americans were overweight or obese, and 13 percent of children and adolescents were overweight. Health officials are calling obesity the country's biggest health problem. A number of research centers on weight control and obesity have been established around the country, but the gist of their findings will produce few cries of surprise or elation from most people who ever have tried to lose weight.

Research shows that people gain weight because they take in more calories than they expend. They lose it when they expend more than they take in. In other words, in order to lose weight and keep it off, you need to watch what you eat and exercise.

How to do this successfully, however, is an individual matter, according to research and health professionals who run weight-loss programs.

People who want to lose or manage their weight must look beyond diet books and into their own lives and habits. Health professionals who want to help their patients lose weight must go beyond referring them to a session with a dietitian or suggesting they join a community weight-loss program and instead help them find programs or regimens that are right for them, offer support and follow up with their weight-management efforts. >>

Livin' large

Weight management and widespread obesity are relatively new concepts for Americans, said Linda Gigliotti, MS, RD, CDE, weight management program coordinator for the University of California, Irvine, Corporate Health Services. "It really wasn't a problem before World War II," she said.

After the war came fast food, women in the workplace, two-income households and technological innovations like television. Time-strapped families stopped sitting down to regular meals. Instead of playing outside, children gathered around the television set.

"It really has continued to escalate," as children and grandchildren who grew up on technology and fast food became adults battling unhealthy weight gains in the 1980s and '90s, Gigliotti said. Activity has decreased by 75 percent during the last 100 years, she said, as food consumption has increased. The average person eats 300 to 400 more calories per day than he or she did in the 1980s, Gigliotti said. "We're not talking about ages ago,' she said. "We're talking about fairly recent history."

Large portions, constant access to food and cultural changes that make it socially acceptable to eat anywhere-in the car, while walking, even in church-have created what she considers a "toxic environment" for people trying to control their weight.

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