Dear President Obama,
We need a public health campaign to encourage Americans to improve fitness and lose weight. The obesity epidemic is a primary public health threat now. According to a study published in the July 2008 online issue of Obesity, most adults in the U.S. will be overweight or obese by 2030, with related health care spending projections as high as $956.9 billion, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. the trend lines has never faltered. It keeps rising year after year.
National leadership is necessary to ensure the participation of health officials and researchers, educators and legislators, transportation experts and urban planners, and businesses and nonprofit groups in developing and carrying out a public health campaign with a chance of success.
This has been done successfully before with smoking cessation. The template is set, we now need leadership.
Will you help?
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Solving Obesity in America
Obesity costs about $117 billion in health care and related costs to families, health care centers and the government each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over thirty years, rates of obesity have doubled in adults and tripled in children, and about two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese.
And though Americans are in trouble, a large European study supports the claim that obesity is dangerous for everyone. The study, spanning decades recently published in this week's British Medical Journal, found that young men who were overweight at age 18 were as likely to die by 60 as light smokers, and obese teens, like heavy smokers, were at double the risk of dying early.
Clearly bold action to stem the obesity epidemic is necessary. In America, our overweight children may be the first generation to have shorter life spans than their parents. On January 9, 2009 the nation's most prominent health and medical leaders sent this message to then President-elect Barack Obama.
"The obesity epidemic is harming Americans' health just as global warming is harming the planet," these experts wrote in a letter to the next President. This requires a coordinated effort of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Transportation and other government officials.
This week President Obama has organized a health summit to discuss this and the other serious issues of our time. Will we have universal coverage? In a recent poll 49% of Americans said they would pay higher taxes for universal care. (I quess it had to get this bad before people would pay up.) In this weeks health summit Obama announced two appointments. Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius has been nominated as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a start and now we need to focus on services for all and prevention. The numerous possible approaches to reversing the obesity epidemic are well known. The executive director of CSPI, Michael F. Jacobson, explains, "What has been missing, particularly by officials in the Bush Administration, is the commitment to actually tackle the problem." Perhaps this is at hand.
And though Americans are in trouble, a large European study supports the claim that obesity is dangerous for everyone. The study, spanning decades recently published in this week's British Medical Journal, found that young men who were overweight at age 18 were as likely to die by 60 as light smokers, and obese teens, like heavy smokers, were at double the risk of dying early.
Clearly bold action to stem the obesity epidemic is necessary. In America, our overweight children may be the first generation to have shorter life spans than their parents. On January 9, 2009 the nation's most prominent health and medical leaders sent this message to then President-elect Barack Obama.
"The obesity epidemic is harming Americans' health just as global warming is harming the planet," these experts wrote in a letter to the next President. This requires a coordinated effort of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Transportation and other government officials.
This week President Obama has organized a health summit to discuss this and the other serious issues of our time. Will we have universal coverage? In a recent poll 49% of Americans said they would pay higher taxes for universal care. (I quess it had to get this bad before people would pay up.) In this weeks health summit Obama announced two appointments. Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius has been nominated as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a start and now we need to focus on services for all and prevention. The numerous possible approaches to reversing the obesity epidemic are well known. The executive director of CSPI, Michael F. Jacobson, explains, "What has been missing, particularly by officials in the Bush Administration, is the commitment to actually tackle the problem." Perhaps this is at hand.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Obesity Obscured
The Robert Wood Johnson foundation plans to spend $500 million over five years in an effort to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States by 2015. In December 2008 they funded the Summit Health Insiturtue for Research and Education in Washington DC in order to reduce childhood obestiy in the District.
The current and significant rise in child obesity has become a major health concern in America since child obesity predicts future health problems. High cost diseases that result like diabetes, heart disease and arthritis raise health care costs for everyone. Medical care for children and adults who develop complications due to obesity require extensive, and expensive treatments.
Families can help because the children model parental behaviors. Schools can help since children learn, eat and play in school. Education, exercise and support are very necessary since as numerous studies show it is far more difficult to lose weight than it is to gain. Yet money for prevention programs, likely less than medications and a doctors care, are hard to find. The Robert Wood Foundation has done their part but a quick Google search finds no more leads and very little chance to even apply for money.
Herein lies the problem of course. As our health insurance system fails, and the cost of care increases and when our government bails out bankers and Republicans fear socialized medicine our childen gain more weight.
Dr. Walter J. Pories, a well-known gastric bypass surgeon, considers the lack of care and insurance financing for weight-loss programs is “the single most frustrating problem in dealing with childhood obesity.”
Yet several national groups are pressing for government financing or insurance reimbursement for more intensive weight loss treatment for children and these groups may now be heard.
Today the Senate passed a bill to provide health insurance to more than four million uninsured children, a bill George Bush vetoed. President Obama is eager to sign it thus providing a great step toward improving the health of American children. And hopefully this is only the first step because we need to stop the growing trend toward obesity in our children before the scale tips too far.
The current and significant rise in child obesity has become a major health concern in America since child obesity predicts future health problems. High cost diseases that result like diabetes, heart disease and arthritis raise health care costs for everyone. Medical care for children and adults who develop complications due to obesity require extensive, and expensive treatments.
Families can help because the children model parental behaviors. Schools can help since children learn, eat and play in school. Education, exercise and support are very necessary since as numerous studies show it is far more difficult to lose weight than it is to gain. Yet money for prevention programs, likely less than medications and a doctors care, are hard to find. The Robert Wood Foundation has done their part but a quick Google search finds no more leads and very little chance to even apply for money.
Herein lies the problem of course. As our health insurance system fails, and the cost of care increases and when our government bails out bankers and Republicans fear socialized medicine our childen gain more weight.
Dr. Walter J. Pories, a well-known gastric bypass surgeon, considers the lack of care and insurance financing for weight-loss programs is “the single most frustrating problem in dealing with childhood obesity.”
Yet several national groups are pressing for government financing or insurance reimbursement for more intensive weight loss treatment for children and these groups may now be heard.
Today the Senate passed a bill to provide health insurance to more than four million uninsured children, a bill George Bush vetoed. President Obama is eager to sign it thus providing a great step toward improving the health of American children. And hopefully this is only the first step because we need to stop the growing trend toward obesity in our children before the scale tips too far.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Home and health in the middle class from the perspective of a true American middle child
I wrote this in Novemeber on the day before the historic election of Barack Obama-the day I was originally inspired to create this blog.
November 3, 2008
Home and health in the middle class from the perspective of a true American middle child, mother of 5, nutritionist and public health professional who lives in Northern California.
Life in USA could change tomorrow. Will we let it? I am looking forward to changes in our homes and health, right here in the middle class and since change is hard I choose to creatively adapt, guide and cheerlead for all of us.
On this rainy November morning, the day before a historic election, I listen to my 8 year old talk about the movie, “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” He is skipping around, explaining, “I keep going back to the middle and then to another part and then the middle again.”
On and on he describes the magnetic rocks and other strange phenomena encountered by the journeyer, the adventure striking his core. While listening I am struck too, not by his story telling which goes round and round, but by his fixation with the middle. I wonder, is the middle the key to health and happiness? Barack Obama speaks to the middle class and because of this he may win the election. We defy gravity by balancing solidly in the middle. Yoga encourages a middle ground between pushing and resting, work and calm. I am a middle child and my middle child defines herself as the balancing factor in our family. So, here in the center I begin my journey to investigate life as a mother, wife, citizen and health educator in America’s middle class; a life style that hopefully grows rather than shrinks when we choose and change our countries direction and leadership tomorrow.
November 3, 2008
Home and health in the middle class from the perspective of a true American middle child, mother of 5, nutritionist and public health professional who lives in Northern California.
Life in USA could change tomorrow. Will we let it? I am looking forward to changes in our homes and health, right here in the middle class and since change is hard I choose to creatively adapt, guide and cheerlead for all of us.
On this rainy November morning, the day before a historic election, I listen to my 8 year old talk about the movie, “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” He is skipping around, explaining, “I keep going back to the middle and then to another part and then the middle again.”
On and on he describes the magnetic rocks and other strange phenomena encountered by the journeyer, the adventure striking his core. While listening I am struck too, not by his story telling which goes round and round, but by his fixation with the middle. I wonder, is the middle the key to health and happiness? Barack Obama speaks to the middle class and because of this he may win the election. We defy gravity by balancing solidly in the middle. Yoga encourages a middle ground between pushing and resting, work and calm. I am a middle child and my middle child defines herself as the balancing factor in our family. So, here in the center I begin my journey to investigate life as a mother, wife, citizen and health educator in America’s middle class; a life style that hopefully grows rather than shrinks when we choose and change our countries direction and leadership tomorrow.
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