BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- According to recent estimates, the first legacy of the obesity epidemic, diabetes has increased by 50 percent over the last decade. And unless Americans get their weight under control, experts predict the numbers will skyrocket by a whopping 165-percent come the year 2050.

Internist Jeff Freesemann said it's not difficult to see why the numbers are going up, especially among children. "We feed our kids extra calories," said Dr. Freesemann. "We take them to the corner fast food place and feed them a thousand calories and teach them habits at a young age."

In fact, a recent study found diabetes to be so rampant that one in three babies born in the year 2000 will wind up with the disease. And with more and more pediatric cases, the prognosis for a generation of other problems like kidney and heart disease becomes more dismal.

Freesemann said in a society where being overweight has become so commonplace, a first important step -- particularly for children is to understand that the problem is far more than just cosmetic. Diabetes can be deadly. "It's a circulatory condition and where is circulation? Everywhere in the body," said Freesemann.

And experts have stressed that the key to winning the war on weight as well as its consequences like diabetes is to remember that our bodies just aren't built to perform well carrying around all the unused calories that jumbo portions and inactive lifestyles leave around our waistlines.