Although New Year’s still is more than seven weeks away, there are people who already are pondering resolutions for 2025 — for their own personal satisfaction, perhaps to impress a spouse or other significant other, or just for humor’s sake.

A funny thing about New Year’s resolutions: No matter how far in advance they might be planned or whether they are just spur-of-the-moment, a good bet is that many, if not most, will be long forgotten by the time Groundhog Day — Feb. 2 — arrives.

Human nature plays a big part in that and, for that reason, much humor is attached to the making of resolutions and the “determination” not to stray from them — even though most people acknowledge early-on that they likely will.

Most people probably never have used the term “November resolution,” but it is reasonable to suggest that November resolutions would be appropriate – just like resolutions that might be embraced in any other month — if those resolutions are well-intentioned with a positive goal in mind.

One good, possible candidate for a November resolution — as well as for any other month — that comes to mind could make the coming holidays happier and healthier and contribute to a longer life. It would be a personally fashioned resolution to attack excess weight by way of healthier eating habits, regular exercise and anything else that could prove beneficial.

But there are two kinds of excess-weight issues — carrying a “few” extra pounds versus being perhaps hundreds of pounds overweight.

The latter will be the focus of this editorial.

An Associated Press article printed in the Mirror’s Sept. 25 edition focused on obesity and something significantly worse — severe obesity – and the prevalence of it in this country.

“Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S., but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago,” the Sept. 25 article began.

That information originated from new government research. According to a 2021-23 survey of about 6,000 people, the U.S. obesity rate is about 40%.

Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity.

People with a body mass index of 30 are considered to have obesity, while people with a BMI of 40 or higher are identified as having severe obesity.

According to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study of this chronic disease linked to many health problems, it’s too soon to know whether new treatments for obesity, including weight-loss drugs such as Zepbound and Wegovy, can help ease the epidemic.

“We simply can’t see down to that detailed level to prescription medication use and compare that to changes in obesity prevalence,” Emmerich said. “Hopefully that is something we can see in the future.”

Solveig Cunningham, an Emory University global health professor who specializes in obesity but who was not involved in the new study, says it is not clear why rates of severe obesity are going up, or why they are higher among women.

It’s puzzling why, despite all of the medical advances of recent decades, it seems only recently that obesity has truly been getting the stepped-up and public attention it deserves.

Too bad, over the years, indeed decades, New Year’s resolutions didn’t instill the kind of urgency that was warranted, even back then.