Childhood obesity rates at crisis proportions
BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer
A soon-to-be-released state obesity task force report will call for body mass index (BMI) testing to be done in all public schools.
"If we do not act, our children may now be the first generation of Americans that would have a lower life expectancy than their parents," William Lovett, CEO of the Metuchen-Edison-Woodbridge YMCA, said at a recent childhood obesity summit held at JFK Medical Center in Edison.
Lovett, a member of the task force, and roughly 120 local community and school leaders, along with medical and nutritional obesity experts, all met to discuss the growing problem on Oct. 11.
With more than two-thirds of Americans considered overweight, and almost half of them - or nearly one-third of the general population - considered obese according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the word "crisis" is no exaggeration.
The current figures compare dramatically with the late 1970s, when less than half the general population was considered overweight and 15 percent was obese.
The conference presenters included public health researchers Dr. Terry Bazzarre of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Dr. Marlene Schwartz of Yale University, hospital CEOs Michael D'Agnes of Raritan Bay Medical Center and John McGee of Solaris Health Systems, which operates JFK Medical Center, along with Sen. Barbara Buono.
"When we look at the averages, they really don't tell the story of the significance and impact of the issue ... in low-income communities, which tend to be communities of color," Bazzarre said. "More than half the children in these communities are obese - not just overweight, but obese.
"We are seeing poverty as correlated with an increased risk of obesity," he added.
West Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest rates of obesity today, he said.
An increasingly sedentary lifestyle is one cause of the growing crisis.
"For example, in 1996, 58 percent of the work force held jobs in sedentary occupations, whereas in 1950, that number was closer to 36 percent," Bazzarre said. "Hours of daily television viewing have also increased from a little over five hours in 1960 to more than seven hours in 1992."
Cars are used for 80 percent of trips of less than 1 mile, Bazzarre said.
An unhealthy lifestyle seriously affects not only an individual's physical and mental well-being, according to the presenters, but also comes at a great cost to society.
"Obesity added a total economic cost to the country of $117 billion in the year 2000," Bazzarre said. "For example, Joe Thompson, the surgeon general for Arkansas, estimated [that] obesity is costing $2 billion to $3 billion a year in Arkansas in terms of medical costs. And in the last eight to 10 years, the state was not investing in policy changes to address these issues."
Depression is a major problem among people who are overweight, and psychological problems therefore also need to be addressed, he said. "Children are severely stigmatized in school, and these stigmas will create situations where they will further drop out in participating in sports or other forms of physical activity," Bazzarre said.
When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, "genetics loads the gun, and the environment pulls the trigger," said Dr. Marlene Schwartz, a researcher with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.
"Any of us are genetically predisposed to be in a certain body weight range," Schwartz said. "Depending on the environment, you may be at the healthy end. Or with that same genetic profile, in a different environment, with a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy food, those individuals will become obese."
Babies innately like sweet flavors, she said.
"Small children also quickly learn to prefer salt and high-fat flavors, and evolutionary-speaking, it makes sense," Schwartz said. "We prefer eating foods that are calorie-dense and that help us to survive famine.
"We are built to eat high-fat, high-sugar food when it is available," she added, "even at the expense of gaining weight."
People possess "ancient genes" in a "modern environment," according to Schwartz.
"There is a disconnect between what we are driven to do and the environment we are living in," she said. "People eat the foods that are most easily available."
The easier food is to get, the more likely people will eat it, Schwartz said.
She cited a recent study done in a college campus store, where the door to the store's ice cream freezer was kept open all day.
"It made it that much easier for passing students to reach in and grab an ice cream," she said, "and their sales increased dramatically."
Nowadays, children drink more soft drinks than milk, which is the exact opposite situation of 30 years ago.
"In the late 1970s, boys and girls drank milk more than soft drinks, at a ratio of 15 to 8 drinks per week," Schwartz said. "In the mid-1990s, it was found that boys and girls drank more soft drinks than milk, at a ratio of 14 to 6 drinks per week."
According to Sen. Buono, medical experts say that half of all teenagers today do not meet acceptable cardiovascular fitness tests.
"With one in five children expected to be obese in 2010, coupled with statistics that over 70 percent of those children will grow into overweight adults, I think it is unconscionable for us to fail to prevent this trend," she said.
Buono has introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would require major chain restaurants to print nutritional information on their menus.
"When people eat out, studies show they significantly underestimate the caloric and fat content of the food that is ordered," Buono said. "The actual fat and saturated fat levels were twice consumer estimates, and the calories approach two times consumer estimates. But when people are given nutritional information, this affects the food choices that they make."
Lovett said that while it is greatly needed, Buono's bill will likely be a "controversial" measure.
"I am sure it is will be opposed by the restaurant lobby," Lovett said. "But the government needs to be on the side of policies that support and strengthen healthy personal choices. She is not telling people what they can or cannot eat. But you owe it to customers to put that information in front of them, which I think makes a lot of sense."
Lovett said one school community in Pennsylvania - the East Penn School District near Allentown - has already instituted mandatory BMI testing for its students with positive results.
"They made the national news because on their own, five years ago, they started BMI testing for their kids," Lovett said. "They stuck with it and got parents involved, and their obesity rates have held flat or decreased in certain age groups at a time when it is skyrocketing nationally.
"There is a role in this that both state and federal governments can serve," he said, "but a local community on its own can [also] have a significant impact."
Childhood Obesity