Obesity kills.
On top of joint strain and pressure on the heart, liver, and vascular system, obesity often leads to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.
“It sets people up for an earlier death,” said Heather Neely, a dietician at Crouse Hospital.
That’s the reason why nutrition experts, health care providers, and some lawmakers are targeting childhood obesity. But government intervention in childhood nutrition is controversial, with critics arguing against what they see as overbearing intrusion by authorities.
Obesity is defined by the Centers for Disease Control as a label given for ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height. For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by mass body index or BMI. This compares an adult’s weight to their height.
An adult body mass index of 30 or higher, according to the CDC, is considered obese. For children, a body mass index also includes age and gender as part of the equation. For example, a 10-year-old boy with a body mass index of 23 is considered obese because he is larger than 94 percent of other 10-year-old boys. A 10-year-old boy with a body mass index of 18 is considered healthy.
The CDC considers obesity a preventable killer. But being overweight is a growing epidemic, experts say.
“A lot of it has a lot to do with the foods that we consume,” said Neely, the Crouse Hospital dietician. “Also, inactivity. Kids and grown-ups just aren’t getting outside like they used to.”
Let’s take a look at the numbers, according to the CDC:
- Nationally, almost 36 percent of adults and 17 percent of children are obese.
- The obesity rate for children is triple the number it was three decades ago.
- Of New York’s adults, 60 percent are overweight and almost 24 percent are obese.
- In Onondaga County, almost 29 percent of the population is obese.
“Overweight kids become overweight adults. So working with the children is the key to stopping the epidemic,” said Neely.
But some critics of government regulation want the government to butt out. “The private-sector charity approach to dealing with an issue like nutrition is far more effective and creates far fewer problems than the government approach,” said Warren Redlich, a practicing attorney in Albany and former Libertarian Party candidate for governor of New York.
Here are some of the proposed solutions and the controversies in coping with obesity in the United States:
- Healthy-Hunger Free Kids Act
The goal of the federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is to improve childhood nutrition through school lunches. This initiative was part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign called “Let’s Move.” In 2010, President Obama signed the act. This past September, it went into effect in schools in the Syracuse area.
The act changed school lunches across the nation by increasing the amount of whole grain-rich foods and fruits and vegetables. It offers only fat-free or low-fat milk and it put a caloric-intake cap based on a student’s grade. The idea was to make the school cafeteria a place to teach students to eat healthily.
“This is where most of our students learn their eating habits, which lasts them a lifetime,” said Annette Marchbanks, the assistant director of food services for the Syracuse City School District.
But the act faces limitations. Just because a student takes a fruit or vegetable, doesn’t mean they will eat it.
“Unless you actually follow them into the cafeteria and sit down with them, you don’t know what they actually ate and what they threw away,” said Marchbanks. But, she said, she hopes kids will see this as an educational opportunity to learn what they should and should not eat.
“If they don’t learn from us, if they don’t learn from school, then all of this is for nothing,” said Marchbanks. “Because we have no control of what they’re eating before and after school.”
- No Hungry Kids Act
The Healthy-Hunger Free Kids Act limits the amount of calories a student can consume during lunch. Elementary school students are capped at 650 calories, 700 for middle school students, and 850 for students in high school.
This calorie-cap has raised some problems, with some youngsters arguing that it leaves them hungry. For example, a student-made YouTube video has become an internet sensation by changing the lyrics to Fun’s song “We Are Young” to express how lunches leave them unsatisfied. The video features lyrics like “the pains in my tummy sing,” “I have no energy to run,” and “I just thought maybe we could find a way not to starve today.” The video has had over one million views.
In response to student complaints, the No Hungry Kids Act was introduced last September by about a dozen members of the House, including U.S. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle R-Onondaga Hill. It aims to repeal the calorie cap included in the school lunch program but has not come out of committee for a floor vote.
The original law that capped students’ calories was “well-intentioned” but flawed, said U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., in an email interview. He is the primary author of the No Hungry Kids Act to repeal the calorie cap. “School districts need more flexibility to ensure students aren’t hungry at school,” Roe said in the email interview.
- Creating Healthy Places to Live Work and Play
The Onondaga County Health Department is trying to teach kids healthy habits even before the classroom, by working with childcare centers. “We want to influence children at a young age,” said Kathy Mogle, the program coordinator for Creating Healthy Places to Live, Work, and Play in Onondaga County.
The Creating Healthy Places program is going into its third year. The program is working with towns and governments to add bike and pedestrian paths to roadways. It brings a food truck with fruits and vegetables to places that don’t have easily accessible healthy food. And it also works with childcare centers to better childhood nutrition.
The program’s workers assess the policies of a childcare center, said Mogle. Then they make suggestions. “We may find that a childcare center serves 2-percent milk to all of their children,” said Mogle. “We may encourage them to switch to either 1-percent or fat- free for children over the age of two.”
Childcare centers are contacted and offered assistance, but Mogle said the centers can say no. Creating Healthy Places is now working with 10 childcare centers to implement policies to make a healthier environment. “The policy or practice-change is based on what the childcare center would like to do. So nothing is imposed,” said Mogle.
One childcare center, Mogle said, wanted to incorporate more nutrition education, so its staff created a vegetable garden for the kids to work on. “So they learn about the importance of fruits and vegetables, they’re able to sample them,” said Mogle.
Among those concerned about the federal government’s role in regulating nutrition are many libertarians, who generally call for small government.
“Most libertarians would agree with me that the federal government is overstepping its boundaries when it gets involved with issues like that,” said Warren Redlich, a practicing attorney in Albany and former Libertarian Party candidate for governor of New York.
The government is overstepping its boundaries, said Redlich, and it isn’t doing a very good job. “Government has been trying to fix the nutrition problem for decades right? How is it working out for you?” said Redlich.
Americans aren’t starving as much anymore, said Redlich, but now they struggle with obesity and other health problems.
If any type of government has to get involved in nutrition, Redlich said, it should be state government, not federal. “Hawaii might have a different view on nutrition than Louisiana versus North Dakota,” said Redlich. “So why would the federal government be imposing one standard or one approach for all the states?”
(Alexandra Montgomery is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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