States Look to Combat Obesity With Laws

By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer

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Fighting to shed a few pounds and control that waistline? For the soaring number of Americans who are becoming dangerously overweight, states and cities across the country want to help.

With the U.S. Surgeon General calling obesity an epidemic, legislators nationwide are offering measures to encourage healthy food choices and ban the worst temptations.

Skeptics say government should stay away from trying to legislate something as personal as what we eat. But supporters say they can't ignore a growing public health problem or how it drives the ever-rising cost of health care.

Few ideas have become law yet. But states have considered scores of bills this year that would, among other things: get kids exercising; warn restaurant eaters about fat, sugar and cholesterol on the menu; and, ban sugary sodas and fattening chips from school vending machines.

In a Louisiana experiment, the state will pay for a few government employees' gastric bypass surgery — or stomach stapling — to see if it reduces health care costs.

"As a country, we have to wake up. We are in an epidemic," said Nevada state Sen. Valerie Wiener, who has had her own battles with weight but now is a champion weightlifter.

She heads a state committee gathering data on obesity, and how the legislature, food companies, the health care system and schools can act. "We're all paying the price," she said.

Under the laws that have passed, states will:

• _Test the BMI — body-mass index, a ratio of height to weight — of students in six Arkansas schools, and send results home. Pediatricians say regular tests like this should be performed nationwide to track children at risk of becoming obese.

• _Ban junk food from vending machines in California. New York City, in an administrative decision, banned hard candy, doughnuts, soda and salty chips from its vending machines.

• _Require physical education programs in Louisiana schools, and encourage it in Arkansas and Mississippi. Though once a staple, such daily classes are now only required by state law in Illinois; other states let local officials decide or require exercise less often.

Public campaigns aimed at getting people to change their eating habits also remain popular. Billboards across West Virginia, featuring photos of bulging stomachs and couch potatoes, exhort people to "Put Down Chips & Trim Those Hips." Houston, Philadelphia and San Antonio, Texas have started "get fit" drives.

The statistics show the need for such efforts. The number of obese adults has doubled in 20 years, and is now up to nearly 59 million people, or almost a third of all American adults.

Childhood obesity has tripled, with one child in six considered obese.

As the pounds add up, so do the health care costs, because obesity is linked to diabetes, heart disease, and deaths from cancer — among other ailments.

West Virginia found that, for state employees, costs for obesity have more than doubled since 1995, rising from $37 million to $78 million, now nearly a fifth of the employees' $400 million health plan.

Still, some are critical both of the statistics and the proposals.

"There's a lot of fear and hysteria," said Mike Burita at the Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group for the restaurant and food industry. "We're allowing government and these public health groups to dictate our food choices to us."

Among his top targets is the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that produces a steady flow of warnings about unhealthy food, from movie popcorn to Chinese takeout.

"It's OK to have a cheeseburger and fries, but it shouldn't be a mainstay of your diet," Burita said. Exercise and education are the solutions, he said. "Kids went from playing dodge ball to playing computer games."

The skeptics are being heard. A Texas proposal to limit school children's access to snack and soda vending machines died after the state soft drink association complained. Most of the 80 or so obesity-related bills around the country also failed to pass.

"It's difficult to want to tackle something like this, something as huge as this," said Weiner, the Nevada lawmaker. She plans to bring together people from the food industry and the public health community to work with lawmakers.

The federal government is acting, too. The Bush administration urged insurance companies to offer premium discounts to people with healthier lifestyles. It has started giving grants to cities to target unhealthy habits.

More immediate changes are brewing on the state and local level.

In West Virginia, the state agency that insures public employees has started offering exercise benefits and diet counseling, in addition to the state's advertising campaign.

"If we don't get a handle on this, this generation of kids coming up will have a shorter life span than their parents," said Nidia Henderson, wellness manager at West Virginia's Public Employees Insurance Agency. "That's scandalous."

OK,

Get kids exercising.. I like.

Kids need to be involved in more physical activities in school. Pisses me off here in Ontario with the teachers’ strikes. They use the kids as pawns & that’s the first thing they refuse to do is extra curricular activities such as sports.

Warn restaurant eaters about…I like

I think that restaurants, franchises anyways, should have to supply a list of ingredients / nutrients just like the food we buy in the store, when requested. Sorry, posting on the Internet is not enough, some people don’t have access. “Secret Sauce?” Sorry, McD’s but we all know what that is already. I never did eat much at these places but they are big business so people are.

Ban sugary sodas and fattening chips from school vending machines…I love.

They are passing this in Ontario currently & I think this is great. Kids don’t need sugar & trans fats. There are other things like nuts & dried fruit that could be sold instead. Children have to be taught to eat healthy & only giving them access to that crap is counter productive.

These bills are almost impossible to pass though. Why? $$$ There is too much money to be made. The big conglomerates don’t care about our children’s’ health. They still think their “Secret Sauce” is a secret………sugary thousand island dressing anyone? Anyone for some French fries sprinkled with dextrose? They genetically modify our veggies to…to…to…what? To keep virus & insect free. They don’t do that on any other continent where people have freedom of speech. I saw a really good program last night about this. They create GMOs because it makes them $$$. They also want us to eating low carb, nutrient absent flour & piles of sugar because it makes them $$$.



Sad…….so sad. Put those $$$ into research instead of dangerous, invasive surgery. Then spend $$$ on educating people on what to eat because I’m sorry with all the information out there John Q. Public doesn’t know.

Yesterday I accidently walked into a convenience store because I needed to go to the washroom (I usually don't go into convenience stores because they carry junk food almost exclusively). Bear with me there is a point to this story. As I was leaving, I passed a refrigerated section that contained breakfast and lunch choices, such as sandwiches, muffins, cookies, cakes, etc. But what blew my socks off was individually plastic wrapped apples, pears, oranges, raw veggies, fruit salads and other items were also part of the offerings. The way these were packaged would fit perfectly into vending machines at schools as could milk, tomato juice, vegetable juice and unsweetened orange juice. These healthier options are do-able and will be successful if no other options such as soft drinks, candies, chips, cheesies are available.

Thanks, Chef. That's exactly what I was thinking. We've had way too much government involvement in our food choices already. We don't need more. ;-)

Education, increased opportunities for exercise, especially in the schools, better choices in school vending machines, all sound good. Nutritional info available in restaurants, as well.

But no way do I want Big Brother telling adults what they can have available to them. I'd like to see consumers demand more restaurant meals where there is/are not half a pound of fries covering the burger or steak, but I don't want the government legislating this. Perhaps if customers started leaving half the super-sized meals on their plates, restaurants would stop piling on the cheap, empty carbs.

And states paying for stomach stapling? Seems a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has gotten out....

All that said, we are in an epidemic of obesity. I'm glad I was born WAY before gameboys, and that I played a lot of dodge ball. (unfortunately, I outgrew dodge ball and never took up anything else exercise-wise.....)

Kay

Getting soda out of the public schools would be huge. I am so in favor of that. Unfortunately many schools get a lot of money from soft drink contracts right now.

When I was in high school ('87-'91) there was a huge outcry when we got "Channel One," which is a professional news program, complete with commercials, shown in classrooms. Schools agree to show it in exchange for a bucketload of AV equipment (and I think cash). Everyone was very upset about commercials being shown in schools.

However, it barely made news when our school signed an exclusive contract with Pepsi. The only complaints I remember were of the "we should be free to choose Coke" variety. No one seemed to think it was bad for a school to be in league with a soft drink maker. We had vending machines all over the school.

In high school, every other day during Journalism I would get a Dr. Pepper and a big pink cookie from the vending machines. In junior high, my lunch every day was a Dr. Pepper and a small bag of Cheetos (this was before "grab bag" sizes, thankfully). I was a thin-to-normal sized kid, but I still didn't need that crap. I shudder to think of what Zane (my baby) will eat for lunch when he's in the 8th grade.

Rosa