OpinionJanuary 1, 2004

Patrick McGann

Starting today, health clubs and fitness centers are due their annual bulge of new members. It will be a rising tide of good-intentioned New Year's resolutions to finally do something about that little swelling problem . It will last a week or two, maybe a month, until sweaty exuberance once again meets its match in relentless gravity.

But wait, blossoming brightly on the radar screens of health care professionals across America, obesity is starting to take its rightful place with tobacco use and alcohol abuse as a major health problem.

The number of obese adults has doubled in 20 years and is now up to nearly 59 million people, almost a third of all adults. Childhood obesity has tripled. One in six kids is considered obese.

Obesity is heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes and cancer. It is joint problems, apnea, falls, depression and suicide. Obesity is not a life choice; it is a killer. And it is extremely difficult to fight.

Obesity is a workplace issue and an education issue. Most people get most of their exercise at work, and increasingly, that means little or none for people who sit in front of a computer or a steering wheel all day.

We drive everywhere we go. We allow our kids to stay inside and play video games. We get home from our sedentary jobs and what do we do? Plop down in front of the tube.

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It's not healthy.

Nutritional and physical education in elementary and secondary schools is a failure. Public service education -- so prevalent on drug, alcohol and tobacco use -- is nonexistent on nutrition and exercise. Meanwhile, the fast food industry is spending millions to educate people to shovel it in.

Only Illinois requires daily physical education classes. P.E. is second only to music education in cuts when budgets get squeezed.

Obesity and associated diseases are a national problem, but there is no national priority to address it. Why?

Overweight people don't need preaching; they need help. And it doesn't have to cost a lot of money. What's needed is a coordinated effort among health insurers, health care providers and federal and local governments.

It's time for a New Year's resolution that sticks. But until then, if you want your defiance of gravity to be more permanent, do a little, do it often, and as the man says, just do it. -- P.M.

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