Schools Called ‘Focal Point’ for Prevention by Advisory Body to the Government
Obesity is so entrenched in the U.S. that it would take an intense push by schools, employers, doctors and others to reverse an epidemic that accounts for billions of dollars in annual health-care costs, concluded a report released Tuesday.
The report by the Institute of Medicine, an influential independent body that advises the federal government on health policy, recommended requiring at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day in schools and considering excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. It urged food companies to improve nutritional standards for foods marketed to people under 18 years old, recommending that mandatory standards be considered at all levels of government if the companies don’t adopt their own.
Doctors should more aggressively screen patients and counsel obesity prevention, and employers should promote healthy eating and offer health coverage for obesity-related services, the report said.
Schools, in particular, should be a “national focal point” for obesity prevention, because children spend up to half their waking hours and consume as many as half their daily calories there, the report said.
Taken together, the recommendations are meant to change the living environment to discourage overeating, junk-food consumption and sedentary lifestyles, said the report’s authors, who argued that the obesity epidemic can’t be curbed through individual willpower alone.
