According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, “American society has become ‘obesogenic,’ characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, non healthful foods and physical inactivity.”

The result of this nationwide environment — coupled with an industrial food system that makes the cheapest food on the shelves the least nutritious and most fattening ­— is a population where more than one-third of American adults, over 72 million people, are obese.

This creates an endless amount of negative consequences. For starters, obesity results in financial inconveniences, such as having to pay for two seats when flying and facing higher life insurance costs.

In a society focused all too often on the superficial, obesity can undoubtedly lead to hiring discrimination creating unequal financial opportunity in the workplace as well.

Of course, psychological damage can also result from obesity, as so many children — and adults who, unfortunately, never grow out of their ignorance — choose to harass and shun the obese.

According to Marlene Schwartz of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, modern western culture’s emphasis on thinness is largely responsible for this stigmatization of obese individuals — a stigmatization that “makes it likely that obese people internalize these messages and feel badly about the physical presence that brands them.”

However, the worst outcome of the affliction is, inarguably, the physical damage it can cause. Among many others, the increased health risks most associated with obesity include diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and many forms of cancer.

While all debilitating and life expectancy-shortening, these diseases also lead to raised health insurance costs for the obese ,a great deal higher than those for other Americans.

While the costs of coverage leave a disproportionate number of obese Americans uninsured, the total annual health care cost of obesity in the U.S. may be as high as $147 billion, according to a study published in the August issue of Health Affairs.

Taking these physical and financial costs into account, it would seem any and all medical professionals — not to mention legislators — should be doing all they can to promote exercise and encourage healthier eating.

So thought Dr. Jason Newsom, an army doctor in Iraq and the former director of Florida’s Bay County Health Department. From his post, Newsom waged a war in the form of a public information campaign against fatty foods.

To educate the citizens of Panama City, he posted food-related statements — the most startling of which included “Sweet Tea Equals Liquid Sugar,” “French Fries Equals Thunder Thighs” and “Gatorade is Sugar Water” — on an electronic sign outside his office.

Ever fearless, Newsom even took on Dunkin’ Donuts through his signboard when he posted “America Dies on Dunkin’,” a rather harsh parody of the company’s slogan, “America Runs on Dunkin’.”

As he explained, “I picked on doughnuts because those things are ubiquitous in this country. Everywhere I went there were two dozen of those things on the back table.”

While Iowans might not be too familiar with the franchise, Newsom is completely correct: At the end of 2008, there were a total of 6,395 Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in 34 states. And, while laudably offering tasty “DDSmart” menu items such as low-fat muffins, multigrain bagels, lite lattes and an egg white turkey sausage flat bread sandwich, their donuts are just as unhealthy as any others.

From a cake donut’s 280 calories and 18 grams of fat to a blueberry crumb donut’s 470 calories and 14 grams of fat, these things are exceptionally efficient artery cloggers.

Thus, while eating a few from time to time is an acceptable indulgence, a daily doughnut — which may very well be the norm for many — can lead to obesity and heart problems which, as Newsom’s sign suggested, could eventually kill.

Yet Newsom’s sign no longer warns the citizens whom he once served of this potential danger. In fact, Newsom no longer serves them either. You see, the sign offended many Panama City citizens, including a county commissioner who owns a doughnut shop and two lawyers who, as luck would have it, each own new Dunkin’ Donuts franchises.

The three men threatened litigation, so Newsom’s bosses at the Florida Health Department offered him the choice of quitting his sign warnings or his post. Newsom resigned. And while I applaud his pride in leaving his job rather than giving up his fight, he never should have been asked to do this.

Yes, Newsom’s statements on the sign were fully unorthodox and a bit extreme. In fact, I would even suggest that Newsom should not have attacked a specific company for the problem of obesity in America — a problem that virtually every fast food company and subsidy program in the U.S. supports.

More doctors in this country need to get the message across to an increasingly obese nation, and Newsom should never have been punished for having the courage to do so.

– Steve Adams is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Annapolis, Md.