Campaign to End Obesity

05/12/2017

Suburban Americans came to build their lives around sitting—sitting on the sofa, sitting at an office desk and, most of all, sitting in the car. Kids went from meeting up with friends at nearby playgrounds or soda shops to being shepherded in a car from school to math tutoring to soccer practice.

Lost along the way were the daily walking and biking that used to get people from place to place in their self-contained communities. Eight hours or more a day of sitting nearly doubles the risk of Type 2 diabetes and sharply increases risks for heart disease, cancer and earlier death, according to research from the University of Utah and the University of Colorado. The average American sits more than nine hours a day.

Simply walking, on the other hand, is, as one former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put it, "the closest thing we have to a wonder drug.”

Learn more here: http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/05/10/community-redesign-walking-biking-000435

Inside the new movement to engineer healthier lives for Americans by rethinking the places they live.

05/02/2017

The best way to set your kid up for financial success can be a nest egg, a grandparent's inheritance or a healthy 529 plan.

Or, it could be as simple as keeping them in shape.

A Johns Hopkins University study found that people who are overweight, over the course of a lifetime, spend an average of about $30,000 more than healthy people on medical conditions associated with , such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, heart attacks, heart failure and certain types of cancers.

Learn more here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/01/exercising-three-times-week-can/307656001/

05/01/2017

About 30% to 40% of American adults have a condition that has no visible signs and rarely causes symptoms, but can raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cirrhosis and liver cancer. It’s called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease—and as American waistlines continue to expand, the prevalence of this dangerous condition is growing as well.

Learn more here: http://time.com/4759498/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease/

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is on the rise in the United States.

04/25/2017

When the NFL launched Play 60 a decade ago as a way to get American youth active, the league had no idea what reach the program would have.

Ten years later, millions of youngsters and 73,000 schools have become involved. Affiliations with such organizations as the American Heart Association and the National Dairy Council have helped make Play 60 one of the nation’s most effective youth health and wellness initiatives, focusing on fighting obesity and encouraging children to be active.

“When the goal is healthier lives, being active physically, the NFL has that magic with kids and with adults,” says Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.

“They have this incredible ability to use their players and their local teams to reach youth and adults. The ability we have to create content has helped make this program magical. When players go into schools, the children just light up. To be a well-conditioned athlete requires an intense level of physical fitness. The players are able to inspire the kids, and Play 60 makes it fun, not a chore or a task, to be active and healthy.”

Learn more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/play-60-battling-youth-obesity-and-lack-of-fitness/2017/04/20/2bfd47d0-260f-11e7-928e-3624539060e8_story.html?utm_term=.b7660c783809

When the NFL launched Play 60 a decade ago as a way to get American youth active, the league had no idea what reach the program would have.

04/05/2017

The Campaign to End Obesity Action Fund today commended Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Tom Carper (D-DE) and Representatives Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Ron Kind (D-WI) for reintroducing the Treat and Reduce Act of 2017, legislation aimed to help address the U.S. obesity epidemic, which costs U.S. taxpayers some $200 billion each year – a figure that will continue to rise absent policy and other interventions.

To learn more about how this legislation will lower health costs and give patients access to proper tools for better health, please visit our website! http://www.obesitycampaign.org/obesity_news.asp

02/23/2017

Feeling stressed out? It may take a toll on your health in all kinds of ways. Stress has been linked to a range of physical and mental health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease, a suppressed immune system, and sleep trouble.

And now there’s new evidence that people who experience chronic, long-term stress may also be more prone to weight gain and . Chronic stress has long been thought to be a culprit when it comes to obesity. People tend to report overeating and consuming “comfort foods” high in fat, sugar, and calories when they are feeling stressed. Hormones linked to stress also play an important role in metabolism and determining where fat is stored.

Learn more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chronic-stress-linked-to-obesity-weight-gain/

New research adds weight to the claim that high levels of stress are connected to obesity

02/21/2017

Six months after getting free healthy groceries every week through the Geisinger hospital near his rural Pennsylvania home, Tom Shicowich has cut his blood sugar level from nearly 11 to close to a normal level of 7. The 6' 5" former high school track team competitor has lost 35 pounds but is still nearly 200 pounds from his target weight of 250 pounds.

The Geisinger Health System is on its way to making its own numbers. On March 1, Geisinger plans to expand its five-patient pilot project to 50 more of its sickest and highest-cost diabetes patients. So far, all of those participating in Geisinger’s Fresh Food Pharmacy have lost weight, lowered their body mass indices, decreased their use of medication, lowered their cholesterol and improved their hemoglobin A1C levels, says Andrea Feinberg, an internal medicine doctor who is "clinical program champion."

Read more here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/17/hospitals-target-nutrition-other-social-needs-boost-health/98042112/

02/06/2017

The rates of public health problems are too high in the U.S. And each one of these problems eats up billions of dollars in gross domestic product through direct costs (e.g., medical treatment, law enforcement), lost work productivity, and foregone taxes.

Existing prevention strategies developed with taxpayer money can sharply reduce the rates of all of these problems — and yet they are largely sitting on the shelf. Programs, like the Diabetes Prevention Program for overweight adults, could improve the health of children and adults in every community in America. Largely developed with government grants, these programs represent the quickest and most powerful means of reducing many of our worst public health problems.

Read more here: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/317797-with-prevention-we-can-make-america-healthy-again

OPINION | Despite our high-tech medical facilities, 20 to 40 percent of deaths due to each of the five leading causes of death in America are preventable.

01/11/2017

This morning, we release our first-ever , “Moving the Needle on Obesity: A Report Card for the 114th Congress,” which gave the 114th Congress a grade for its work on policy to address the U.S. obesity epidemic. Find out how they did and see who made "Top of the Class!"

http://obesitycampaign.org/documents/MovingtheNeedleonObesity.pdf

12/12/2016

Why do some people lose 50 pounds on a diet while others on the same diet gain a few pounds?

This is the question at the center of research today. Two people can have the same amount of excess weight, they can be the same age, the same socioeconomic class, the same race, and the same gender. And yet a treatment that works for one will do nothing for the other.

The problem, researchers say, is that obesity and its precursor — being overweight — are not one disease but instead, like cancer, they are many.

Learn more here:

Obesity and its precursor — being overweight — are not one disease, researchers say, but many, which makes treatment difficult and results wildly variable.

11/30/2016

Obesity and excess weight is an expanding health problem for more than 60 percent of Americans, and our new study finds that it’s a tremendous drain on the U.S. economy as well. The total cost to treat health conditions related to obesity—ranging from diabetes to Alzheimer’s—plus obesity’s drag on attendance and productivity at work exceeds $1.4 trillion annually. Read the full report: bit.ly/weighingUSdown

11/01/2016

Americans believe that is the biggest health threat in the nation today - bigger even than cancer. But though scientific research shows that diet and exercise are insufficient solutions, a large majority say people should be able to summon the willpower to lose weight on their own.

“It’s frustrating to see doctors and the general public stigmatize patients with obesity and blame these patients, ascribing attributes of laziness or lack of willpower,” said Dr. Donna Ryan, an obesity researcher and professor emerita at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., who was not involved with the study. “We would never treat patients with alcoholism or any chronic disease this way. It’s so revealing of a real lack of education and knowledge.”

Read the whole story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/health/americans-obesity-willpower-genetics-study.html

Three-quarters of participants in a new study said obese people should exercise more and eat better, even though science says it’s more complicated than that.