The Big Picture: Obesity, Consumption, and Food Production Robert C. Johansson, Lisa Mancino, and Joseph Cooper Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1800 M Street NW, S-4195, Washington, DC 20036-5831. E-mail: Rjohanss@ers.usda.gov; lmancino@ers.usda.gov; Jcooper@ers.usda.gov ABSTRACT Reducing the percentage of Americans who are either overweight or obese to meet public health objectives may influence agricultural production+ The authors’ results show that reducing aggregate consumption by 6% to meet public health objectives with no increase in overall physical activity could reduce production of agricultural commodities and reduce net returns to producers by $3+5 billion+ However, if consumption is reduced by 2% concomitantly with a marginal increase in phys- ical activity, similar health outcomes could be achieved at much less cost ~$1+3 billion!+ Con- versely , continuing obesity trends may enhance returns to agricultural production by $1+3 billion annually + Changes in agricultural activities would likely be variable across the landscape+ Results indicate that the largest potential changes in agricultural producer net returns ~ positive or negative! would occur in the Corn Belt and the Lake States+ There, crop acreage could fall by as much as 650,000 hectares+ @EconLit citations: Q130, Q180# © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc+ 1. INTRODUCTION In 1999 to 2000, 65% of American adults were overweight and over one third were both overweight and obese ~Surgeon General, 2004!+ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ~CDC! estimated that the prevalence of obesity in the United States increased from 14+5% to 30+9% between 1971 and 2000 ~CDC, 2003!+ According to recent esti- mates ~Surgeon General, 2004!, obesity accounts for $117 billion a year in direct and indirect economic costs, is associated with 365, 000 deaths each year, and may soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths ~ Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, & Gerberding, 2005!+ Because of these trends, obesity treatment and prevention have become major public health objectives+ In November 2000, the U+S+ Department of Health and Human Services ~ USDHHS! published “Healthy People 2010”—hereafter referred to as HP 2010—setting forth objectives to improve health and reduce the inci- dence of diseases associated with obesity + Among these are to increase the percentage of the population with a healthy weight to 60%, decrease the percentage of the popula- tion who are obese to no more than 15%, and increase the percentage of the population who are active ~ USDHHS, 2000!+ Past research shows that U+S+ diets would need to change significantly to conform to the U+S+ Department of Agriculture’s ~ USDA’s! former Food Guide Pyramid ~ Kantor, Agribusiness, Vol. 22 (4) 491–503 (2006) © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/agr.20099 491