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Obesity
Fastest Growing
Health Threat in U.S.
Excerpt
By
Andrea Orr,
Reuters
Health
SAN FRANCISCO (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,
Julie Gerberding director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said on Wednesday.
"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.
Reference
Source 89
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