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Date Posted: 05:20:27 04/07/04 Wed
Author: J.R.Smith, c.f.t. ISSA
Subject: As to target alarming obesity trends


Ads to Target Alarming Obesity Trends

Tuesday, March 9, 2004


WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Federal health officials on Tuesday launched a public campaign asking Americans to make small lifestyle changes that can help bring down skyrocketing rates of obesity.

The campaign includes a series of light-hearted advertisements that gently nudge viewers to become slightly more active and make better food choices.

But the ads' humor contrasted with some grave comments from officials, who timed their announcement to coincide with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) release of new data suggesting that deaths due to obesity are poised to surpass those blamed on tobacco.

"Our poor eating habits and lack of activity are literally killing us, and they're killing us at record levels," US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said at a briefing Tuesday.

The CDC study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that obesity-related deaths jumped 33% between 1990 and 2000, when they stood at approximately 400,000 per year. Tobacco-related deaths number approximately 440,000 per year, and at current rates obesity could surpass tobacco as the nation's leading cause of preventable death, according to the study.

The study's findings also suggest that obesity deaths may already outpace tobacco deaths in 2004. "I don't know that but I wouldn't be at all surprised," said CDC director Dr. Julie H. Gerberding.

The television ads are scheduled to hit US airwaves beginning tomorrow. One spot features a shopper who finds two jiggling blobs in a shopping center and hands them into a lost and found desk.

"What are they?" the shopper asks. "Love handles," answers the desk guard. "Lots of people lose 'em taking the stairs instead of the escalator."

The spots were coordinated by the non-profit Ad Council on a pro bono basis and rely on donated time from television and radio networks, officials said.

Thompson said the ads are designed to offer "positive encouragement" for small lifestyle changes that might help individuals lose some weight.

America's obesity epidemic, which now affects around two thirds of adults and one in six children, has defied warnings from public health experts and officials for years. "We're not here to make people feel depressed or guilty," he said.

As with tobacco companies in the late 1990's, the obesity problem has also prompted several lawsuits against fast food chains. Critics accuse the industry of refusing to cut back on the fat and caloric content of their popular foods, and a handful of plaintiffs have sued alleging that the foods caused them to gain dangerous amounts of weight.

That led to the introduction yesterday of a bill in the US House designed to immunize restaurant chains against obesity-related lawsuits.

Thompson declined to take a position on the bill, though he did criticize the lawsuits the bill seeks to prohibit. "You're not going to accomplish what you want to accomplish...by litigation," he said.

Thompson also said that he favors a federal tax credit for individuals who lose weight, citing the $117 billion that obesity-related disease are estimated to have cost the economy in 2000.

Absent from the new public service announcements is President Bush, who is widely known to participate in regular exercise in an effort to stay in shape. Thompson suggested that Bush was soon to "become very active in this campaign."

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