I submit that the greatest crisis that the United States faces is its epidemic of fat.
Obesity is enormously costly because it leads to health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. More than a third of Americans are obese, and the health costs reach into the hundreds of billions. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 100,000 Americans developed cancer in 2012 due to obesity. Also, obesity is associated with an even more insidious scourge: depression.
It isn't just the nation's pocketbook that is suffering. In a recent article, Vanessa Wong of Bloomberg Businessweek reported that obesity is damaging the U.S.' military preparedness: