The Doctor Weighs In

Nicholas Kristof's editorial in the today's New York Times starts off with a question:

"What vegetable do American infants and toddlers eat most?"

The answer:  A French fry?  That right, a French fry. 

A study by Gerber, the baby food company, found that a third of young children don't eat any vegetable daily, but when they do, it's the French fry they are eating.  Twenty percent of kids, 19 to 24 months old eat French fries at least once a day. 

The editorial goes on to point out that, on the day in which President Bush is going to talk about health care costs in the US in his State of the Union address, we really should be talking about health--public health.  The editorial suggests some things we could do as a nation that would reduce health care costs and at the same time improve health.  Here's a partial list:

• Ban soda, potato chips and other unhealthy snacks from schools and discourage them in workplaces
• Encourage exercise breaks (I love this one--imagine how many more people could get in their 30 minute workouts if they had time to do it at work)
• Expand PE.  And, I would add, make PE a meaningful exercise experience that will give young people skills to incorporate exercise into their daily lives once they leave school
• Promote jogging and biking and hiking and and walking and anything else that gets us up and moving.  Kristof's most creative suggestion is developing TV sets for kids that are powered by exercycles.
• Design better  stairways.  Kristof suggests making stairways open and appealing while making elevators dark, dingy and out of the way.
• Sell cigarettes only in pharmacies and raise cigarette taxes

As was pointed out in a NY Times series on diabetes , we as a nation are willing to pay many thousands of dollars to treat complications of unhealthy behaviors, but we are hesitant to add meaningful coverage for services, such as personal trainers and dietary counselors, that could prevent the development of disease in the first place.  Isn't it time to get this right?

This blog was originally posted on the PEERtrainer website (www.peertrainer.com) on January 31, 2006.