Health Advocates Call on President Obama to Combat Obesity with New Commission

President Barack Obama (D) has been urged by health organizations, nutrition experts and physicians to sign an executive order creating a Presidential Commission on Healthy Weights, Healthy Lives to take on the nation’s escalating rates of obesity. In a June 22, 2009, letter to the president, signatories suggested that the United Kingdom’s anti-obesity campaign could act as a model.

“The increased rates of obesity will negate many of our nation’s investments in health care and could actually condemn youths to shorter life spans than their parents,” the letter stated. “Each year, obesity causes tens of thousands of premature deaths and tens of billions of dollars in avoidable medical costs. Obesity also leads to heart-wrenching psychosocial problems, such as difficulty making friends, stigmatization, and discrimination in employment.”

Groups that signed the letter included the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), American Diabetes Association, American Public Health Association, National Consumers League, Partnership for Prevention, Shape Up America, Trust for America’s Health, United Fresh Produce Association, and Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, which organized the effort, was quoted as saying that Obama and his wife “have been enthusiastic proponents of healthy eating, gardening, and improving school foods, and the administration is sending so many of the right signals with regard to appointments. Their challenge is to harness the new national excitement about nutrition and translate that into government policies that actually promote health.”

CSPI contends that obesity leads to $95 billion per year in medical costs, about half of which are paid by Medicare and Medicaid. See CSPI News Release, June 22, 2009.