Yes or no to this statement, obesity is the government's business.

We all eat, but do we do it wisely and, well, obviously not.

So who is supposed to fix that?

Well, that's what we're going to have out here tonight.

This is another debate from Intelligent Squared U.S., I'm John Donovan.

We have four superbly qualified debaters, two teams of two, three rounds of debate,

and then the audience will vote to choose the winner and only one side wins.

And as we go into it and meet our debaters, ponder this thought.

At one point in our history, the Surgeon General of the United States raised the alarm

about the number of Americans who were underweight.

That was Dr. Hugh Cumming, he was the sixth Surgeon General, and it was 1925, and he certainly

thought it was the government's business that Americans were getting to few calories.

So what happened?

Our motion is obesity is the government's business, and arguing for this motion I'd like

to introduce this team first, first Dr. David Satcher, who is the 16th Surgeon General

of the United States, and Dr. Satcher, you were the first to raise the alarm in 2001 about

the obesity epidemic.

I want to just ask you very briefly, at that point, did you see us reaching this point

where the numbers are, where they are today?

Well, it was sort of a surprise when we saw what had happened over a 20-year period and

a direction that we were going in terms of increasing obesity.

So we didn't know how long it would take to begin to turn what we call the epidemic around.

...