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Paducah, Ky. City Government
Schools need to be within walking distance of their students' home. Communities need to commit to making healthy food choices available to residents. Streets have to be kept safe so families can play,
These and other recommendations for increasing activity and decreasing waistlines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention come on the heels of findings that the total annual cost of obesity-related disease in the United States is approaching $150 billion.
The CDC opened this July documenting the epidemic of obesity among Americans. The agency closed the month by issuing a set of 24 recommendations for “reversing this epidemic," according to Dr. William H. Dietz, who directs CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity. Dietz noted that getting people active and eating better "requires a multifaceted and coordinated approach that uses policy and environmental change to transform communities into places that support and promote healthy lifestyle choices for all people.”
Spurring the CDC to act was research the agency conducted in conjunction with RTI that revealed more than 9 percent of health spending in the United States could be traced directly or indirectly to problems of obesity. That research, published in the journal of Health Affairs, determined that "thecosts of obesity for the United States across payers (Medicare,Medicaid, and private insurers), in separate categories forinpatient, non-inpatient, and prescription drug spending ... could have risento $147 billion per year by 2008."
The CDC's anti-obesity recommendations are currently being pilot-tested in Massachusetts and Minnesota.
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