By Anita Creamer and Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee

In her professional life, Sacramento public relations executive Kassy Perry has long represented health organizations trying to combat California’s obesity problem. In her personal life, she has struggled with weight loss, trying with little success to drop the 30 pounds she gained after age 50. Today, at 52, she’s active and athletic. But the weight won’t melt away.

She feels embarrassed that she hasn’t lost the weight, she said, and she’s frustrated with the often simplistic approach weight-loss advocates take.

“It’s easy to say people need more education,” Perry said, “like they don’t know not to have a box of doughnuts and a gallon of juice first thing in the morning.

“We know better. It’s not just that people are ignorant.”

Across the nation, the number of baby boomers who are overweight or obese continues to climb, and as a group, they have hit middle age much heavier than the previous generation. Almost three of four people ages 49 to 67 – the baby boom generation – are overweight or obese in the four-county Sacramento region, according to a new survey from the UCLA Center of Health Policy Research.

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