The Democrat running against Republican Jeff Flake for Arizona's senate seat once said obesity would inflict more harm on the nation than the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 

At a 2010 lecture at the University of South Carolina, Arizona Senate candidate Richard Carmona said obesity was a greater threat to the country than terrorism. 

"Obesity is the terror within," Carmona said, according to the Associated Press. "Unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9-11 or any other terrorist attempt."

Carmona, the former Surgeon General, wondered where the country's soldiers and policemen and firemen would come from if the majority of the population had to deal with obesity when they reached adulthood.