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Surging obesity rates in the United States over the next half-century could reduce life expectancy by as much as five years, new research shows.

A drop this dramatic would result in at least one generation likely to die younger than its parents, bucking the trend of modern history. Such downturns prior to this have usually been caused by a catastrophic event such as major war or an infectious pandemic such as influenza or HIV/AIDS.

An accidental by-product, said epidemiologist and lead researcher Dr. Jay Olshansky, is that the American government-run pension plan may be saved from bankruptcy simply because people will be drawing less from it. At the same time, though, health-care costs are expected to explode.

About one-third of Americans are overweight and another 30 per cent are obese. Canada is not much better off -- about as many people are overweight but the obesity rate is half that of the U.S.

Dr. Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that current obesity levels in the United States reduce life expectancy by between four and nine months, a seemingly small total that still represents more than the effects of homicides, suicide and accidental deaths combined.

A two- to five-year reduction could be greater than the effects of cancer or heart disease.

“This isn't speculation, we're not talking about some hypothetical new infectious disease that may or may not sweep across the globe or sweep across the United States,” he told globeandmail.com in a middle-of-the-night interview from Brisbane, Australia.

“We're not talking about something we can't see, we're talking about something we can see. We can measure it.”

He notes that such a dramatic effect on life expectancy could erase potential gains made in other areas of medicine -- for example, curing cancer would probably extend the average life by only about 3.5 years.

The research, which will appear in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, was slammed by a director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, a lobby group based in Oakland, Calif.

“I've read the article and I'm really saddened by it,” said France White, who called it part of a continuing effort to “demonize” fat people.

“It's wrong to focus only on numbers on a scale, you have to look at the person's whole health. NAAFA is not about telling everybody it's okay to be fat. We believe in health at every size,” she said.

She said that the article contains several errors and is based on selective misinterpretation of earlier studies. And she worries that it will send the wrong message to those who aren't overweight.

“I think it gives a very false sense of security to thin or average-sized people, because what the article's saying is [that] the only measurement of health that you should look at is your weight,” she said.

In a statement accompanying Dr. Olshansky's study, co-author David Ludwig, director of an anti-obesity program at Boston's Children's Hospital, said that childhood weight problems and diabetes are being exacerbated by fast food and high-sugar beverages.

“These adverse changes in diet have been driven by a multi-billion dollar marketing campaign by the food industry aimed at young children,” he said.

Dr. Olshansky warned that it would be unwise to put hope in medical or technological breakthroughs that may or may not materialize. Instead, he argued, obesity needs a concerted campaign similar to the one that brought down smoking rates among youth.

“Our paper is based on the premise that, if we don't intervene this is what is likely to happen,” he said.

He fingered the food and beverage industry as well, saying that junk-food is laden with fat and sugar and that restaurants serve enormous portions, skewing the public's perception of what is a “normal” serving.

“The fast-food industry has really made it very difficult because they make high-fat, high-calorie foods available very inexpensively,” he said.

“When the fast-food industry makes the healthier foods less expensive than the high-fat, high-calorie foods, then I'll believe that significant inroads are being made.”