Symptoms: Too many couch potatoes. Too many potato chips. Not enough exercise.
Diagnosis: An obesity epidemic.
“It’s a big concern,” says Rachel Murphy, a registered dietician with the Onondaga County Health Department. “We certainly have a lot of work to do.”
Murphy is among a growing number of health care professionals concerned about the trend toward obesity both nationally and locally. Obesity is defined by the Centers for Disease Control by a measure called “body mass index,” which is calculated from weight and height. For example, someone who is 5-foot-9 and weighs more than 203, with a body mass index greater than 30 percent, is considered obese.
The problems from obesity, health officials and other experts say, include poor health for young and old, higher health care expenses and a fragmented response among lawmakers and others on solutions.
The numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics and Onondaga County Health Department paint this picture:
•Nationally, 66 percent of adults in the U.S. are obese or overweight. In Onondaga County, that’s 56 percent.
•Nationally, 19 percent of children are obese or overweight. In Onondaga County, that’s 12 percent.
•A total of $127 million per year spent by hospitals across the country on care for obese or overweight patients.
Obesity is on the rise because of changes in society over the last two to three decades, says Liz Richardson, a health expert with Trust for America’s Health. The organization is a non-profit think-tank based in Washington, D.C. It focuses on health studies and testifies before Congress on health-related issues.
“Studies show that kids are becoming more obese and less active through every year of grade school, which is scary,” Richardson said. “We’re in a really severe problem and a lot of the behaviors that enable obesity to grow at such a fast rate are so engrained in our culture.”
The marketing of junk food to children at a younger age helped jump-start the obesity rates, Richardson said. Children, she and other experts say, are targeted by junk-food commercials, for example, that draw youngsters with toys. And some schools offer junk food in vending machines.
For adults and children alike, the lure of TV and computer screens can help put on the pounds. More screen time means less time spent burning off calories. Those who watch more than 3.6 hours of television a day, are almost 50 percent less likely to meet daily exercise needs, according to a 2006 study by the American Journal of Public Health.
More and more across the country, these couch potatoes are getting flabby at a rate alarming to health professionals like Mary Bentley, a health professor at the University of Ithaca. “In the United States, the rise in obesity is probably the single biggest health concern right now,” Bentley said.
For example, the Centers for Disease Control identifies obesity as the major cause of a dramatic increase in diabetes.
To confront the obesity epidemic, lawmakers and health professionals across the country are coming up with different plans.
In New York, for example, Gov. David Paterson floated a so-far unsuccessful proposal for an 18-percent sales tax on non-diet sodas and sugary juices to deter youngsters from the drinks.
In Onondaga County, health officials are trying to revamp the way children view their diets. The initiative is called “Eat Well, Play Hard.” It encourages seven childcare centers in Central New York to plant vegetable gardens, supports nutritional programs in schools and creates a new supplemental food program for young mothers and their infants.
“We’re pursuing something that we think is exciting and fun,” Richardson, the dietician with Onondaga County, said. “But if it’s not super easy for someone to do — like how we’re giving them fruits and vegetables right at their fingertips — you’re going to end up having a longer and harder time seeing results.”
In other states, lawmakers are also encouraging more exercise programs in schools. In Wisconsin for example, State Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat, is pushing legislation to overhaul physical education classes.
Introducing new forms of fitness education while providing children with the daily amount of recommended exercise will help curb the problem, Kind has said..“To develop healthy minds, you need healthy bodies,” Kind said in a press release when he introduced the bill in the Wisconsin legislature in March.
But health professor Bentley, of Ithaca College, worries that solutions to obesity tend to look at either exercise or diet. Advocates for either, she said, need to join forces and tackle the problem from both perspectives.
“The part that’s alarming is the question: diet or exercise?” said Bentley. “It’s both together.”
(Conor Orr is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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