CDC: Obesity fastest-growing health threat

Thursday, June 5, 2003 Posted: 12:05 PM EDT (1605 GMT)

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SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Tobacco is the largest cause of death in the United States, but obesity and a general lack of physical fitness is rapidly catching up and needs to become a priority for the country's healthcare system, said Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We just recalculated the actual causes of death in the U.S. and we did see that obesity moved up very close to tobacco, and is almost the number one health threat," she said.

Gerberding addressed the Commonwealth Club, where she had been expected to talk extensively about the growing threat of bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases, such as SARS. But her comments focused more on traditional diseases, which she said could be better managed with some common sense prevention.

Referring to her recent work in a hospital emergency room, Gerberding said that a patient log from one day showed multiple people treated for tobacco-related illnesses, trauma resulting from failure to wear a seat belt or helmet, cancer and AIDS.

"None of my patients were admitted for bioterrorism," she said, stressing that even in today's world of heightened terror alert, the threat of terrorism should not be exaggerated relative to the other traditional health threats people faced.

With regards to obesity, Gerberding suggested health officials take a community-based approach to the problem, by, for example, offering people more residential roads on which to walk. She also said people should not underestimate the large improvements made by small lifestyle changes.

Eliminating just 100 calories per day, or burning that much more through exercise, will prevent additional weight gain for most people, she said, and can be achieved with small changes like taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

Gerberding said the CDC's main approach in combating tobacco-related illnesses was to prevent children from starting smoking in the first place. But she conceded that strategy had seen limited success.