WASHINGTON - Ride a bike or
hop on a skateboard. Any physical activity is cool and a plus in the fight
against childhood obesity.
That was the straightforward message from an expensive and heavily promoted
federal program that claimed it led to a 30 percent increase in exercise among
the pre-teenagers it reached.
Despite the apparent success, the Bush administration killed the program this
year through budget cuts. That was a shortsighted decision in the view of an
organization that advises the government on health matters.
The demise of the program, known as VERB, "calls into question the commitment
to obesity prevention within government," an Institute of Medicine expert panel
reported Wednesday.
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan of Emory University, who led the panel, was more blunt,
saying it was a waste of public money to develop a program that works and then
to dismantle it.
One in five children is predicted to be obese by 2010. Efforts to turn that
tide are scattershot, given too few dollars and lacking the national leadership
needed to speed real change, the report found. No one knows how many of these
programs to trim kids' growing waistlines actually work, the panel said.
"Is this as important as stockpiling antibiotics or buying vaccines? I think
it is," Koplan said. "This is a major health problem. It's of a different nature
than acute infectious threats, but it needs to be taken just as seriously."
To reinforce that point, the report spotlighted VERB, a campaign by the
federal Centers for Disease Control that encouraged 9- to 13-year-olds to
participate in physical activities. Slick ads, at a cost of $59 million last
year, portrayed exercise as cool at an age when outdoor play typically winds
down and adolescent slothfulness sets in.
A CDC spokesman, Jeff McKenna, said the agency is "trying to do everything we
can to package the research and lessons learned from VERB so it can inform
campaigns local groups might take on throughout the country."
The report cites other examples of promising federal programs that have not
reached their potential:
_Kids gobbled fruits and vegetables in an Agriculture Department school snack
program. But it only reaches 14 states.
_The CDC's main anti-obesity initiative had enough money this year to fund
just 28 states starting childhood nutrition and exercise programs.
The report did praise some state and local efforts for their creativity.
Examples include:
_A California program, begun in Marin County, to build new sidewalks and bike
paths. They are getting more children to walk or bike to school.
_A community garden project in New York City's Harlem section to increase
inner-city youngsters' access to healthful food and safe recreation.
_An effort by Arkansas schools to notify parents when students are
overweight. Combined with new school menus and physical activity programs, the
initiative recently reported a leveling off of the state's child obesity rate.
In 2004, the institute recommended that parents, schools, communities, the
food industry and government work together in taking on childhood obesity.
Wednesday's report was the first assessment.
"We still are not doing enough to prevent childhood obesity, and the problem
is getting worse," said Koplan, a former CDC director. "The current level of
public and private sector investments does not match the extent of the problem."
More than individual programs, full-scale social change is needed to make
healthful eating and physical activity the norm, said one member of the expert
panel, Toni Yancey of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Some 17 percent of U.S. youngsters already are obese, and millions more are
overweight. Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol,
sleep problems and other disorders.
The report shows "what the country is doing is like putting a Band-Aid on a
brain tumor," said Margo Wootan of the consumer advocacy Center for Science in
the Public Interest.
The institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences, a private
organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific
matters.
