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REMARKS BY:

TOMMY G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

PLACE:

Williamsburg, VA

DATE:

June 2, 2004

Time Obesity Summit

Thank you, Jim, for that kind introduction [Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly]. I’d like to thank everyone from Time, ABC News, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for bringing so much attention to this critical issue.

I’m so pleased to be here at this National Summit with so many of you who are leaders in the fight to address this health crisis.

And let’s be clear, friends, we do have a crisis on our hands. Right now, our country is just too darn fat. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions.

I know most of you saw the report a few months ago—from a study coordinated by our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that obesity is on the verge of overtaking tobacco as the leading preventable cause of death in America. Some researchers believe that it is already the leading cause.

This is remarkable. America’s poor eating habits and lack of physical activity are literally killing us. And they're killing us at record levels. The statistics are staggering.

If you’ve been feeling the ground beneath your feet getting lower, perhaps it’s because there are a billion overweight people walking around on it. A disproportionate number of them live here in America. In fact, two out of every three of us are overweight or obese.

  • Obesity cost the American economy $117 billion in the year 2000
  • About 75 percent of our health care dollars are spent treating chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. And $75 billion of that treats obesity alone.
  • These chronic illnesses—many of which can be prevented by healthy lifestyles—cause seven out of every 10 deaths.

Even worse, America’s children are more sedentary and overweight than ever before. The number of overweight children has tripled in the past two decades—and diabetes rates have skyrocketed right along with this obesity.

That’s a lot of bad news. The good news is that while the problem is vast, the solution is achievable. I believe we can turn the tide against obesity in America, and I want to talk today about my vision for making that happen.

First, we have to continue to work hard to spread the gospel of personal responsibility. Each of us has to take responsibility for making the right choices when it comes to diet and exercise. My Department has taken steps to promote this attitude—and most important, we’re trying to do it in creative ways, without inflicting the guilt that turns so many people off.

From the day I arrived at the Department of Health and Human Services, I made healthy living and disease prevention our Department’s cornerstone priority. I put our whole Department on a diet, and I lost 15 pounds myself.

I began handing out pedometers, to help people walk 10,000 steps a day. Now they’re a fashion statement. I’ve given one to each of the Cabinet Secretaries. Don Rumsfeld wears his religiously, and he and his wife have competitions to see who can take more steps.

The leading scientists at all of our renowned institutions and centers have rallied around the cause of prevention, and this has affected many of our policies. My Department has issued a “Blueprint for Action” to reduce and prevent chronic diseases. The Blueprint outlines steps people can take to help improve their overall health.

Two years ago, I launched the Steps to a Healthier US initiative to advance President Bush’s goal of helping Americans live longer, better, and healthier lives. This year, we will award $44 million to help communities promote disease prevention and health. And for next year, we have requested $125 million to support this grant program.

These funds are used for activities ranging from establishing community walking programs to helping schools, worksites, shopping malls, senior centers and other community locations establish exercise, nutrition and smoking cessation programs.

One of the goals of Healthier US is to get cities competing with each other, trying to one-up each other with their efforts to promote healthy living. I’d love to see Chicago competing with Milwaukee for the right to be called America’s healthiest city. Of course, with their love of beer and brats, both of these cities have a long way to go. But I think it’s achievable, and these grants will help motivate this action.

I’m also pleased to announce that we are releasing today an additional $4 million, through the Administration on Aging, in continuing evidenced-based prevention grants. These 18 grants are going to 11 different states to encourage physical fitness, nutrition, falls prevention, medication management, chronic disease self- management, and health disparities. And they reflect the fact that obesity is a problem that affects all ages, races, and demographic groups.

The message that permeates these programs—and this is our most important message, that we cannot stress enough—is that small steps can make a big difference. We want people to understand that they don’t need to make drastic changes to their lifestyles to be more healthy.

We’re not asking anyone to run a marathon, join a gym or give up eating. We’re talking about small steps—play outside with your children, snack on fruits and vegetables, take the stairs instead of the elevator. These small steps really can make a big difference in our health. For example, losing just 5 to 7 percent of body weight can prevent or delay pre-diabetes from progressing to Type 2 diabetes.

One of the ways we are trying to encourage these steps is through a creative public education and advertising campaign. Our ads run on TV, radio, and the Internet, in English and in Spanish, and I think they’re pretty funny.

They show people who find body parts—love handles, double chins, big bellies—that have been “lost” by people who are practicing healthier habits. They send the message that small steps can make a big difference in leading to healthier lifestyles. And they do so without making people feel guilty and discouraged.

Let’s take a few minutes to watch these ads, because I think they’re really innovative.

[play Ad Council “Small Steps” ads]

As you see, these are innovative and creative ways to communicate a critical message.

Our public service campaign will continue. And I am pleased to announce today that we will be expanding our public service campaign with the Ad Council. We will continue to build upon the Small Steps campaign in the coming year, but we also will be adding a new advertising campaign targeting children. We want to begin educating children early on about the importance of being active and eating healthy. We want to help reinforce the messages our parents teach their children: eat your vegetables. Go outside and play. Put down the video games and play a game of tag. Then later next year, we plan to freshen the adult campaign with new ads.

When you combined these two Ad Council campaigns with our VERB campaign, which targets pre-teens, we are getting out targeted messages to much of our population. We are providing motivation for our children, their parents and adults to take the right steps – often small steps – to lead a healthy life. And we can certainly use the media’s continued help in getting out these important messages to adults, children and entire families. We hope you will run these public service announcements. And we hope you will continue to report on these very important topics – devoting your covers and front pages to this important topic.

We’re also taking other steps to educate the public.

At the Food and Drug Administration, we are working to make it easier for consumer to understand the simple message that calories in must equal calories out. You cannot lose weight if you eat more calories than you burn.

FDA is examining how to revise food labels to ensure that consumers clearly understand how many calories they are consuming. Accurate, helpful information will allow them to make wise food choices at home, at supermarkets, and even in restaurants.

Practically, this might mean listing the total number of calories in a package rather than just in a suggested serving size. Or it might mean increasing the font size for calories, or including a percent Daily Value column for total calories. We’re also considering defining such terms as low-carbohydrate, reduced- carbohydrate, or carbohydrate-free.

Some overweight or obese people need more help with controlling their weight than diet and exercise can provide. They need medical intervention. So we’re revising and reissuing FDA’s 1996 draft Guidance for the Clinical Evaluation of Weight-Control Drugs.

We’re also making it easier for individuals to make good choices by revising the Dietary Guidelines. An Advisory Committee is investigating the best ways to update this nutrition guide, and we are looking forward to their report. My Department and the Department of Agriculture are conducting an open, transparent process, and our new guidelines and Food Guide Pyramid will be based on sound science. We expect to issue new guidelines in early 2005.

We’ve also developed an aggressive new research strategy on obesity at the National Institutes of Health. This year, we will spend more than $400 million on obesity-related research. Because there is no single cause of all human obesity, we must explore every aspect of prevention and treatment, including behavioral, cultural, socio-economic, environmental, physiologic, and genetic factors.

The bottom line is that when it comes to the question of staying healthy, none of us can be neutral. If we haven't made an effort to make good choices and develop the right habits, chances are good that we're practicing the wrong habits.

And the same holds true for companies and organizations. All of us have the responsibility to encourage healthy behavior in our own lives and families. And often we have the opportunity to encourage healthy behavior among our customers and employees

Let’s look at the food industry, for example. Companies that produce and market food often affect how we think about food and what kinds and quantities of food we eat.

Early in my time here at HHS, I sat down with many leaders from the food industry, including fast food companies, to talk about the need for them to do more—to include a greater variety of healthier menu items, to offer more nutritional information, and to take more steps to encourage healthy living. I’ve continued to meet with food companies throughout my time here—as well as insurance companies—and I think they would agree that I haven't been shy about it.

And I’ll be honest, at first I met some resistance. But over the past year, we have seen many changes demonstrating that our message is resonating in boardrooms throughout the food industry. We sounded the alarm, and the free market is responding. More companies are realizing that healthy living and prevention programs are not only compassionate; they are also good business practices. And they’re taking some encouraging steps.

Let me give you a few examples.

Last year, Kraft Foods announced it is eliminating all marketing in schools and developing guidelines for all advertising and marketing practices, especially for children. Kraft is also working to make its existing product line healthier.

I also met with the leaders of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. And I am pleased to tell you that Coke is reaffirming its policy against marketing soft drinks to children under 12 and is also putting nutritional information on vending machines in schools. Pepsi's "better for you" and "good for you" products account for 43% of its sales. In addition, they are producing their Frito Lay salty snack foods with no hydrogenated oils - that is, trans fats. Both Pepsi and Coke are adding healthier beverage choices to their vending machines.

Unilever is eliminating trans fatty acids from its margarine.

And together, Coke and Kraft Foods, along with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, have announced a new initiative, Triple-Play, to help young people to make informed decisions about their physical, mental, and social well-being. This initiative is the first of its kind developed in collaboration with my Department.

Even McDonald's just introduced a new Balanced Lifestyles Platform, including: their first adult Happy Meal,new Happy Meal choices, and new McDonald’s Menu choice ordering options. Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, and others are taking similar steps. This is good and I’d like to see all of them do even more.

But it’s not just food companies that can make a difference. Every employer—profit, nonprofit, faith-based, or governmental, can make a difference.

Whenever I talk to employers or insurers or food producers, I tell them, if you haven't made an effort to make your policies consistent with healthy habits, chances are you're leading people down the wrong path. And this path can be an expensive one.

Most corporations, as you know, offer their employees part of their compensation in the form of cash, and part in the form of a health insurance premium. And if you talk to senior management of corporations in almost any industry about their biggest concerns, as I have, you hear over and over about rising health care costs. The more expensive health care is, the harder it is to compete with foreign competitors.

Preventable chronic diseases contribute to rising costs. That's why employer spending on prevention is a wise investment that pays off. It pays off in lower health care expenses. It pays off in lower absenteeism and higher productivity. And I encourage all employers to make this investment so they can reap big returns for a long time.

Some organizations think that if they've complied with laws and regulations and survived for another year, they're doing all they need to do. But that’s not good enough. More companies need to realize the opportunity they have to take an active role in informing their employees and motivating them to make healthy choices .

They also need to help make more lifesaving services available for their employees. Many nutrition and physical activity programs, mammography screenings, and even simple blood pressure checks - are extremely cost effective.

And we at HHS are leading by example. Medicare is the Nation’s largest provider of health insurance, affecting more than 40 million seniors and people with disabilities. With this year’s Medicare Modernization Act, I pushed to include more preventive benefits in Medicare. And starting in January 2005, seniors entering Medicare will be offered a complete, “Welcome To Medicare” physical, that will include appropriate screenings and referrals to disease management programs. In addition, all people on Medicare will be covered for blood tests that can diagnose heart diseases. And those at high risk for diabetes will be covered for blood sugar screening tests.

It makes sense to spend money on preventive medicine. Preventive care enables doctors and patients to diagnose and treat health problems earlier, changing our health care system from a focus on treating disease to a focus on preventing disease. This shift in thinking will pay off not only in lower healthcare expenses, but also in better quality of life for all Americans.

Many organizations in different industries have developed creative ways to keep their workers and their families healthy. Last year, I launched the Innovation in Prevention Awards to recognize these creative activities and encourage other companies to duplicate those efforts.

These awards were modeled after the Malcolm Baldridge quality awards, presented by the Department of Commerce. We hope they continue organizations to do the right thing on prevention, especially on preventing obesity.

So we’re encouraging healthy behaviors with individuals, with the food industry, with companies and non-profit organizations. In short, we have sounded the alarm, and good things are happening. People are springing into action and organizations are taking positive steps to address this problem. This Summit is a reflection of this positive attention.

I’m convinced that we are approaching the tipping point on obesity. This is an incredibly hopeful moment when we can truly change America’s outlook on obesity. By engaging every sector of our society—the government, corporations, local organizations, communities, and families—we can apply the well-placed lever needed to change the way Americans look at healthy living and change behaviors. When people behave differently, then thatbehavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or tipping point is reached, when we will be on our way to tackling obesity in America.

Let’s do everything we can to enact small steps that will help build the momentum necessary to reach this tipping point. Unlike a fad diet that’s a short run fix, we have to make changes to tackle obesity that will last a lifetime.

All of you are at this conference because you know how to make things happen. You work with, or for, all levels of the government. You work in the free market. You work with health centers, health departments, and hospitals. And all of you deal with employers.

My challenge to each of you is to find a way—not just one way, several ways—to spread the message of healthy living to the people in your state. Your employer, your neighborhood, your health plan, your church, your grocer, your favorite restaurant, and your own family—there are countless opportunities for each for each of us to encourage disease prevention and healthy living in our own lives.

And let’s keep the dialogue going—we should have a national summit on obesity every year, so this issue stays on our radar screen until it’s not a problem anymore.

And when it’s not a problem anymore, may it be that people look back at 2004 as the year when the tide started to turn on obesity. Let’s work together to make this happen.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

Last Revised: June 14, 2004

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