There’s No Silver Bullet
Promoting healthy lifestyles requires a multi-faceted, long-term commitment. No single program or policy change can effectively combat the problems caused by physical inactivity and unhealthy eating. It will take coordinated implementation of multiple approaches using several of the strategies and targeting several of the groups identified in this toolkit to produce observable and sustained results. (1)
Health Promotion Pays Off
In a September 2003 report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that corporate health promotion and disease management programs produce a return of $1.49 to $4.91 in benefits for every dollar spent. (2)
Even a Little Change Does a Lot of Good
Even modest weight loss of 5 percent to 10 percent of excess total body weight reduces the risk factors for some diseases, especially cardiovascular disease. A sustained weight loss of 10 percent, through healthier eating and moderate physical activity, can reduce an overweight person’s lifetime medical costs by more than $5,000 and even increase life expectancy. (3)
Eating Better Leads to Better Health
If people increased their fruit and vegetable consumption to the recommended five servings a day, cancer rates could be reduced by more than 20 percent. People who consume eight or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day are 30 percent less likely to have a heart attack than people who consume fewer than 1.5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. (4)
Get Moving, Get Healthier
Overweight people at risk for diabetes can reduce that risk by 60 percent by becoming physically active for 30 minutes a day and losing a moderate amount of weight. Getting inactive Americans over the age of 15 to engage in regular, moderate physical activity may save as much as $77 billion a year in medical costs. (5)
Personal Responsibility and Community Responsibility
No program or policy will succeed unless individuals take the responsibility to make healthy choices. However, it is hard for many people to make such choices when healthy alternatives are not readily available—such as when there are no supermarkets or farmers markets that provide fresh produce; no sidewalks, biking trails, parks, and other safe places to be physically active; no alternatives to fast food in school vending machines and fatty foods on school menus. (6)
Our Children are at Risk
The epidemic among children and teenagers has reached such proportions that, unless we reverse current trends, we will be raising the first generation of Americans who will live with more illness and die younger than their parents. (7)
(1) Koplan et al., Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, Institute of Medicine, September 2003, p.4. Available at http://www.iom.edu/?id=22623.
(2) U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Prevention Makes Common Cents: Estimated Economic Costs of Obesity to U.S. Business, September 2003. Available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/prevention/.
(3) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Preventing Obesity and Chronic Diseases through Good Nutrition and Physical Activity, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2003.
(4) H.C. Hung, K.J. Joshipura, R. Jiang et al.,“Fruit and vegetable intake and risk of major chronic disease,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 96:1577-84 (2004).
(5) Pratt, et al.,“Higher Direct Medical Costs Associated with Physical Inactivity,” The Physician and Sports Medicine 28:6370 (2003).
(6) David Satcher, surgeon general of the United States, remarks at the release of the Surgeon General‘s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity, December 2001.
(7) Olshansky et al, “A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century,” New England Journal of Medicine March 17, 2005;352(11):1138-45.