ABC News/Time Magazine Obesity Poll, May 2004

This special topic poll, conducted May 10-16, 2004, was undertaken to assess public opinion on the problem of obesity in the United States. Respondents were asked to rate their own personal health and the importance of a healthy diet and physical exercise in their lives. Questions were posed regarding how often respondents and their children watched television, used the Internet, e-mail, or computer games for personal use, and engaged in moderate or vigorous physical exercise, how much influence their children had on what food the family ate, whether they kept a supply of fresh fruits and vegetables in their home, and whether they or their children were overweight. Respondents were polled on how often they ate at fast-food restaurants, whether they tried to track the amount of calories, carbohydrates, and fat content in their daily diets, whether they wanted to lose or gain weight, whether they had followed any type of weight-loss program, and whether it had helped them. Several questions asked about the hardest part of losing weight, the biggest causes of obesity in the United States, whether respondents had ever felt that they were discriminated against because of their weight, whether they had any negative feelings about people who were overweight, and whether certain groups or institutions such as the fast-food industry and government policies and laws bore any responsibility for the nation's obesity problem. Respondents were also polled on whether they would support or oppose government policies such as a tax on high-fat or high-sugar foods, requiring labels on certain foods warning of the health risks of being overweight, and setting a legal limit on portion sizes in restaurants. Other topics addressed whether health insurance companies should be able to drop coverage or charge higher premiums to people who are overweight, whether schools should be allowed to raise money by allowing soda and candy vending machines in school, the seriousness of problems such as cancer, AIDS, cigarette smoking, obesity, and drug and alcohol abuse as public health issues, and whether the federal government was doing enough about these problems. Background information includes sex, ethnicity, education, marital status, household income, number and sex of children in household, weight and height of respondents and children, and subjective size of the community: rural, urban, or suburban.