The recent report from the Trust for America’s Health on state- by-state obesity rates is further evidence that obesity is affecting most Americans and most people continue to gain weight each year. While we can take pride in the fact that Colorado is the least obese state in the nation, we should be concerned that obesity rates in Colorado are increasing at the same rate as the national average. In fact, more than one in five adults in Colorado are obese, and more than half are overweight. Even more alarming is that at least 15 percent of our kids are overweight.
Obesity in adults leads to diabetes, heart disease and cancer – and higher health care costs. We are now seeing overweight kids developing diabetes. The future is not optimistic – even for Colorado – unless we act now.
It is far easier to prevent weight gain than to produce permanent weight loss. We can take advantage of this and act now to stop excessive weight gain in our population and remain the leanest state. We can even be proactive in promoting Colorado as a healthy place to live or the place for a healthy, active vacation. Colorado can be attractive to businesses because our healthier workforce results in lower health-care costs.
With some small, feasible lifestyle changes, adults in Colorado can avoid the one to two pounds that most Americans gain each year and children can avoid excessive weight gain. One of the initiatives to help people make these small changes is America on the Move (AOM), which started here in Colorado at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. AOM inspires people to make two small lifestyle changes – walk an extra 2,000 steps each day and choose a way to eat smarter to reduce energy intake by about 100 calories each day.
We must ask all sectors of society to help make it easier for people to make and sustain the small lifestyle changes. For example, restaurants and grocery stores can help by providing easy tips for how to eat a little less. Some restaurants in the Denver area have already worked to include menu tips for saving 100 calories (for example, leaving the cheese or the mayo off the hamburger).
Other businesses can help by promoting more walking. This may involve providing pedometers and incentives for walking to employees or rewarding customers for more physical activity. Even businesses that do not deal directly with food or physical activity can get into the game by providing tips for making these changes.
It would be great if every new car sold came with a free year’s pass to the zoo (a great place for walking) or every new house sold came with a free pedometer. Denver Public Schools have already initiated efforts to improve the nutrition and physical activity environment in schools and could serve as a national model.
Our governor and our mayors could serve as role models for making these small changes. After all, it would be great for economic growth. The bottom line is that if everyone contributes, we can help people in Colorado make and sustain small lifestyle changes to stop gaining weight. If we ask every person, every business and every organization in Colorado to make a few small changes, the result will be a big change for the state.
Sept. 28 is the America on the Move day of action. We are asking all Americans to take the pledge to walk an additional 2,000 steps and eat 100 fewer calories on that day. The pledge can be taken at www.AmericaontheMove.org. Wouldn’t it be great if the rest of the country looked to Colorado for guidance on how to deal with the obesity epidemic?
James O. Hill is a professor of pediatrics and medicine and the director of the Center for Human Nutrition at University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.
