Welcome to beautiful North Carolina in 2017. We have miles of sandy beaches, beautiful mountains, quaint towns, and the 23rd highest overweight and obesity rates among children aged 10 to 17 in the nation. More specifically, about one in three (32.3%) North Carolina high school students are either overweight or obese (Eat Smart, Move More NC). One in three! In other words, if your high schooler has two best friends, it is likely that one of the three of them is overweight or obese. Our nation is currently experiencing an obesity epidemic. The definition of an epidemic is a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time. The startling point is that obesity is a disease within our control. Although I am just one person in our world of more than seven billion, I am making it my mission to do what I can to tackle the childhood obesity issue and put a dent in this epidemic. The obesity epidemic has numerous effects on our nation, from our health to our wallets. The chronic disease costs the United States approximately $190 billion in health-related bills each year (Understanding the American Obesity Epidemic). Our ever-growing bodies are developing Type II Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, respiratory problems, in addition to social and psychological problems, to name just a few. But you knew that. Everyone knows the risks, yet we keep letting ourselves and our children eat more, exercise less, and, all the while, grow bigger and bigger. In the table below, you can clearly see this trend of rising percentages of obesity prevalence in American adolescents over the past three decades (The Psychiatric clinics of North America). The current generation [...]