A Plan for Overweight Kids

Also, a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that your probability of being obese is higher if you associate with other people who are also obese. This study tracked over 12,000 people in strong social networks and found that a person's chance of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if he or she had a friend who became obese during a given time interval. In a way, obesity is contagious. But so is losing weight.

I've been advising some of the large food companies to make more healthful foods and to promote healthier lifestyles. What are your thoughts about the role of industry?
If we're really going to reduce this epidemic, we're going to have to engage industry. They make the food we eat. They are committed, many of them, to improving the food supply. I'm not in favor of demonizing the food industry. But for every $100 we may spend to try to make a healthy, active environment for kids, industry spends $10,000 advertising to them. They need to advertise only healthy foods to kids. I have some hope that this kind of approach might work, because about two years ago President Clinton and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation negotiated an agreement between beverage manufacturers and schools to meet guidelines for what would be shipped to schools. And they have been on track with meeting those guidelines. A year later they were able to demonstrate that the calories shipped to schools were reduced by 41 percent. If you have bottled water in front of you and you're thirsty, you're more likely to choose that instead of a sugary drink.

Also, we need to reform our farm policy. We know that what we produce on the farm gets into the food supply and gets consumed. And we have a farm policy—and a new farm bill—that's much more heavily weighted toward the economic outcomes of our policy than the health outcomes. How do we get more fruits and vegetables produced as compared to seed oils and other crops that can be used to produce sugars and fats? Working together, we can begin to imagine a new world where kids go to schools where the food is healthy, where they are able to exercise and play, where they can be active in their neighborhoods, and they can have a new appreciation for ways of having fun that don't involve having a screen in front of them.

© 2008