Posted on 05/08/2012 6:45:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Federal agencies should step in if industries that promote high-calorie foods to children do not implement common nutrition standards within two years, the influential Institute of Medicine (IOM) said Tuesday.
The recommendation came as part of a 478-page IOM report on the U.S. obesity epidemic that outlined broad policy changes the panel says are necessary to stave off a healthcare crisis.
The changes are aimed at a complete overhaul of the United States's "obesogenic" environment, the panel wrote.
"People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese," panelist Shiriki Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania said.
"That advice will never be out of date. But when you see the increase in obesity you ask, what changed? And the answer is, the environment.
"The average person cannot maintain a healthy weight in this obesity-promoting environment," she said.
Strategies like a possible soda tax and new zoning laws to encourage walking and biking are designed to "reinforce one another's impact to speed our progress," said panel Chairman Dan Glickman, a former secretary of Agriculture.
The food and beverage industry, as well as its marketers, must cooperate or face possible federal intervention on issues like childhood nutrition standards, the panel warned.
Schools and employers also have a part to play, the report says, recommending students spend 60 minutes each day exercising and that workplaces expand wellness programs.
The report stated that obesity-related illness has an estimated annual cost of $190.2 billion, and a study released Monday by researchers at Duke University forecast that 42 percent of Americans will be obese by 2030.
"Obesity is both an individual and societal concern," said IOM President Harvey V. Fineberg in a statement, "and it will take action from all of us — individuals, communities and the nation as a whole — to achieve a healthier society."
The IOM is part of the National Academies and makes recommendations on health issues to the federal government.
The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, comes during three days of Centers for Disease Control meetings on the topic of obesity.
i say let’s start the war against obesity right after we win the war on drugs.
Weren’t they supposed to wait until ObamaCare was ruled consitutional before the next phase came out?
Obesity and contraception are the newest scams to give 0bama something to talk about.
He has nothing else that he’s done right in the past three and a half years.
From doctors to dictators.
Getting welfare queens up off their collective arses and into the work force would eliminate about fifty percent of our national obesity problem.
I’m so sick (pardon the pun) of using “epidemic” to describe obesity. While technically correct, it implies that people are helpless and will succumb to obesity like typhoid fever. BS!! 98% of obese people are obese due to behavior CHOICES. Of course children with lazy or absent parents are truly victims, but government intervention only makes their problems worse.
It’s cheaper to make your child oatmeal and fruit or eggs for breakfast, but pop tarts or doghnuts are EASIER...thus the problem.
Nationalize the food production and distribution industries. Shut down all food or drink outlet except government distribution centers where everyone must go for their daily rations. Make any home production of food, gardening and hunting criminal. Problem solved in a way most academics and bureaucrats will approve.
Why don’t the school buses allow the pampered crumb snatchers to walk ten feet to their own front doors?
Not to mention, it was just recently that the gubmint’s own “Food Pyramid” had grains and bread as the largest food group to devour.
Now, some are saying cholesterol lowering drugs can cause diabetes!!!
My A1C went to hell when I started on statins
Who, exactly, are the members of the Institute of Medicine?
Because I don’t think they are particularly influential.
I have never heard of them.
Why does anyone care what they think?
Now, it doesn't do either one of those things and has drilled down to lecturing me about my diet.
Time to push the reset button.
Which means NOTHING will happen until TANF and all the other programs are defunct. Nearly half of my 17+ years at the state unemployment office was spent teaching “job seeking skills” to welfare and food stamp recipients. 80% are not looking for work. We sent many of them to college, FREE OF CHARGE and still they said they couldn’t find work. This was back when the unemployment rate there was around 1 to 3% or so. Oh, btw, back then I didn’t have degree!!
But, but I thought children were going to bed hungry!
Why not just stop the EBT cards! Problem solved.
How about a less active federal role. ... In every part of our lives?
Somehow this obesity “epidemic” isn’t preventing the life expectancy of Americans from rising.
Unemployment and welfare can be habit forming if there is no incentive to do anything about it.
In the early 50s (I was seven or so) my family was forced to go on the equivalent of welfare. Once a week the welfare lady came by our house to drop off our weekly “commodities” consisting of a box of food. She made a big and noisy deal about it to make sure the whole neighborhood knew she was there. This was such an embarrassment to my family that they soon found jobs and got off welfare, apparently that was the point and it worked.
Now it is against the law for the government to embarrass anyone in any way, even if it might make a positive difference.
Heaven forbid we embarrass anyone into getting a job or getting off the government dole.
‘the INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE’
‘INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE’?
BROTHER, that comes right out of AYN RAND’S ‘ATLAS SHRUGGED’ AND ‘WE THE LIVING’
with a OMINOUS thrust of ‘1984’ thrown in for bad measure.
no one who loves freedom wants any part of any
GOBERNMENT ‘INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE’
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.