This has got to stop.

We live in a fast-paced, mechanized, high-tech, high-pressure, deadline-driven, excessively mobile society. We also live in a super-sized, big gulp, latte grande, colossal burger, $6.95-all-you-can-eat world. It's a deadly combination.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, if you're overweight you are more likely to die from cancer. Not just a little more likely, but over 50 per cent more likely to die from cancer than those of normal weight and body mass.

This startling study further states that obesity (i.e. 30 pounds or more over normal weight; isn't is amazing how easily you got there?) is responsible for 90,000 cancer deaths each year and it's worse in women than in men. Twenty per cent of cancers in women are linked to excess weight.

That's 1 in 5, ladies. Fourteen per cent of cancers in men are related to too much tubbiness.

Add this to weight-related health problems of failing hearts, strokes and the skyrocketing occurrence of diabetes 2 and the total is a disturbing amount of self-inflicted chronic ailments and premature deaths. Around 300,000 premature deaths this year. Bon appetit and hand me the remote.

This is not a new phenomenon. King Henry the VIII of England set the standard for obesity related illness in the 16th century. What is new is that the ill effects from poor activity and bad nutrition is now so widespread, certainly in the United States and increasing world wide.

Modern medicine has put small pox, whooping cough, typhoid and the like behind us, only to see too many of us dig an early grave with our own spoon. How self-destructive can we be?

Let's put aside the usual excuses of genes, metabolism, glands and the ever favorite, too little time. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese because we eat too much and move too little. This isn't rocket science and it can't be ignored.

It's also a challenge for most Americans, myself included, to maintain a healthy weight. In the last two decades, food has become available everywhere, it's cheap and heavily advertised. Portion sizes are ridiculous and we routinely consume on a daily basis the amount of calories our forebears enjoyed only on feast days. Cultural standards, eating patterns, peer pressure, stress-induced cravings and human nature add to the slippery slope.

Yet, we are not entirely instinct-motivated. We have fairly well-developed brains and we can make smarter choices. Move! Walk to work, paint the house, plant a flower bed, dance. Eat less. Remember, enough is as good as a feast. Enjoy less food of better quality, preferably in good company.

Exercise your body, mind and wiser options.

Brenda Berstler is the founder of the Walking Example Group (WEGO).