Obesity is everyone’s problem

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing today on “Childhood Obesity: The Declining Health of America’s Next Generation.” Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), called the “champion of children” by Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-Iowa), presided over the hearing and said that the childhood obesity epidemic is one of the most urgent threats to American children. Dodd explained that “our children’s generation” may be the fist in the modern era to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. He also said that nearly one out of every three American children are obese or are at risk of becoming obese and children are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2, “adult-onset” diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

Dodd said that childhood obesity is a problem that “affects all of us,” and “we’re all going to be paying the bill.” He explained that the obese spend thirty six percent more on health care and seventy seven percent more on medications. According to Dodd, everyone - parents, schools, governments, employers - needs to see the rising childhood obesity rates for what they are: a medical emergency.

Jeffery Levi, the Executive Director for Trust for America’s Health, said that approximately twenty three million children are obese or overweight in the U.S., and rates of obesity have nearly tripled since 1980. He explained that the U.S., as a nation, needs a cultural shift in which healthy environments, physical activity and healthy eating become the norm. Francine Kaufman, a past national president of the American Diabetes Association, said that obesity has reached epidemic proportion in the U.S. Kaufman also said that during the mid-1990s, type 2 diabetes in youth increased ten-fold and mirrored the childhood obesity epidemic. She explained that there is no doubt that obesity in youth, along with its associated medical conditions, is the major health challenge of this century, and more needs to be done to combat it.

Margaret Grey, dean and professor of the Yale School of Nursing, said that this obesity epidemic in youth threatens not only the future of children with chronic diseases and a decreased lifetime, but the epidemic is multi-faceted and will ultimately affect the workforce and thus the economy. Grey explained that obesity and diabetes have physical complications - cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, blindness, and amputations - as well as complications related to quality of life - depression and academic achievement. She also said that this generation of youth cannot survive if Congress continues to pay for the care of their heart attacks, but not for the intensive behavioral care that it will take to reverse the epidemic.

Senate Committee discussess employment at hearing

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee held a hearing today to discuss “Unemployment in a Volatile Economy: How to Secure Families and Build Opportunity.”

Chairman of the committee Edward Kennedy (D-MA) spoke briefly to say that his committee cares about fellow human beings and is concerned about rising unemployment, the lack of jobs, and what happens to people when they lose jobs. He said that the country's unemployed have been looking for work longer than in any period in recent times.

Ranking member Mike Enzi (R-WY) said that the administration must ensure that workers and students are provided the resources needed in order to live lives without severe financial troubles. He stressed the importance of improving k-12 education where, he said, 7,000 students drop out every day. He talked about a Tennessee high school principal who set up a successful institute to inspire students to pursue higher education and help curb the dropout rate. He said that high schools are only graduating about 70% of their students each year and unless that rate improves, the nation will lose $3 trillion in unearned income. He concluded by saying that a large number of those who graduated high school still have not met the educational requirements to pursue higher education or work and said that there is a need to put a system in place for longterm education, training and retraining.

The New York State commissioner of the Department of Labor Patricia Smith told the committee that her city's rate of longterm unemployment rate is higher than it has been in recent times and that the rate is expected to continue rising. She said that youth unemployment is the highest of all age groups as nd urged Congress to modernize the unemployment system by closing gaps. She complained of the long time period that workers must wait to access their benefits and said that she agree with Pres. Bush's FY2009 budget which calls for reduced funding and services for employment.

Princeton University professor of Economics Alan Krueger cited a rise in the unemployment rate from 4.4% in March 2007 to 4.9% as of January 2008. He said that the average duration of unemployment for an unemployed worker was 12.7 weeks in January 2001. Today, he said, the average duration has climbed to 17.5 weeks. He said that polls conducted reveal that both low and high-income Americans feel that it is currently a bad time to find a job and said that losing a job often has a “scarring effect” on workers, even after they find a new job. Krueger also said that it was “unfortunate” that Bush's new budget calls to eliminate funding for research projects to study the employment and economic situation.