WASHINGTON - More Americans soon will be dying of obesity than from smoking if current trends persist, which would make being fat the nation's No. 1 cause of preventable death, the government says.

A poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump over 1990, said a study released Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tobacco-related deaths in the same period climbed by less than 9 percent to 435,000 as the gap between the two narrowed substantially. At this rate, obesity will claim the top spot, the report said.

"Our worst fears were confirmed," said Dr. Julie Gerber-ding, the CDC's director and an author of the study.

An ad campaign that begins today tells viewers they can lose midsection love handles and double chins one step at a time if they eat less and exercise more.

"We're just too darn fat, ladies and gentlemen, and we're going to do something about it," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said at a news conference.

Thompson, a fierce anti-smoking advocate who has trimmed his own waistline since coming to Washington, drew parallels between the drives to stop smoking and to get Americans to eat less and exercise more.

"We're so busy with our lives we use fast foods more often as not. We don't cook as a family any more. We don't exercise," Thompson said today on NBC's "Today" show. "As a result of that, we're getting too darn fat."

"It's a difficult fight but we all have to partake in it," he said, citing a recent move by McDonald's Corp. to drop its "Supersize" french fries as among a host of actions the food industry has taken, including greater package labeling, at the prodding of the government.

The Bush administration wants to cut funding for the VERB campaign, a CDC project to promote physical activity among 9-to-13-year-olds, from $36 million this year to $5 million in 2005. Gerberding said the program has resulted in a 30 percent increase in exercise among those children.

While Congress rejected limits on lawsuits against tobacco companies, the House will debate a bill today that would shield restaurants and fast food franchises from lawsuits seeking to blame them for obesity and health problems related to it. The bill was prompted by the fast-food industry's complaints about a rash of lawsuits that fault their food for Americans' bulging bellies.

"If you eat a lot of food and you get sick, it's your responsibility, and not the restaurant's," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

McDonald's has announced it will end Supersize fries and drinks except for special promotions in its more than 13,000 U.S. restaurants by year's end.

Several soft-drink makers also have announced plans to offer a larger number of healthier products.

Many states are making attempts to slow the increase in obesity among children by limiting their access to unhealthful foods during the school day.

The CDC study is the latest in a line of research that documents widespread weight gain, and its consequences, among Americans from children to the elderly.

The researchers analyzed data from 2000 for the leading causes of death and for those preventable factors known to contribute to them. Like tobacco, obesity and inactivity increase the risks for the top three killers: heart disease, cancer and such cerebrovascular ailments as strokes. Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle also strongly increase the risk of diabetes, the sixth leading cause of death.

The results appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

A separate report by the Rand Corp., meanwhile, found that increases in obesity threaten to erase improvements in health among middle-aged and older Americans. At current rates, health-care spending on obesity among 50-to-69-year-olds is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2020, the study said.

Americans' predilection for fast food, increased use of computers and a reduction in school physical education programs were cited by Thompson and other officials as contributors to the nation's fat problem. Two out of three adults and 9 million children are overweight or obese, they said.

Rather than recommend dramatic changes in diet and exercise, Thompson said Americans could begin a gradual exercise program. They could get off the bus a block farther from their homes, he said, and slowly cut back on unhealthful foods.

The new public service announcements debuted by Thompson use humor to tell people they can slowly trim their waistlines. In one ad, someone turns in a pair of love handles found near the stairs in a shopping mall. "Lots of people lose them taking the stairs instead of the escalator," says a clerk at the lost and found.

In another ad, a shopping cart gets stuck on a double chin that someone lost near a supermarket's fruit and vegetable display.

The Food and Drug Administration also is expected to issue a report on obesity this week. The FDA has been considering whether to require restaurants to provide more nutrition information and change nutrition labels on food sold in grocery stores and other outlets to help consumers.

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov