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Studies have shown that obesity in the United States is an increasing problem. The problem is because of food marketing, according to Margo Wootan.
Wootan, the director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington D.C., came to the University of Maine on Tuesday. She shared her concerns about childhood obesity with a group of about 50 people, offering her ideas for a hopeful, healthy future for both the state of Maine and the entire nation.
Wootan’s stop in Orono came a day before she made a presentation at a conference in Augusta on marketing and children.
Through her appearances, Wootan is trying to make people aware of what she says is one of the fastest-rising problems in the country.
“It’s front page news,” said Wootan of the rising problem of obesity. “That hype is for real.”
She said two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, meaning they are 30 to 50 pounds overweight. She also said there has been a significant rise in the rates of diabetes over the last 10 years, a disease related to obesity. While the first three leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer and stroke, diabetes is not far behind. It is the sixth leading cause of death.
Wootan said Americans spend $15 billion on diabetes care each year, compared to $19 billion on cancer and $43 billion on heart disease. The government also spends a great deal each year through Medicare and Medicaid. Wootan believes if people just ate a little bit healthier, the American people could reduce governmental expenditures about $145 billion per year.
Wootan, who has been with CSPI for twelve years, realizes it may not always be easy for people to eat healthy.
“Even if you want to eat well, in America it’s just so hard,” she said.
It’s not a lack of personal willpower, but rather the type of food advertising that people are subjected to, Wootan said. She believes advertising is an even bigger problem for children.
“The marketing encourages children to almost exclusively eat unhealthy foods,” she said. “The diet they’re encouraged to eat is really out of balance with the diet they should be eating.”
She said the advertising aimed toward children is not just commercial television, but involves magazines and appealing packaging as well as school-based marketing on school signs or vending machine, among other places.
Forty-three percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools have vending machines, Wootan said.
She said she believes in teaching nutrition to young children and that schools are not doing enough to educate students about good health.
“To me, as a parent, I think it is as important to teach our children how to avoid diabetes as it is to teach geography,” she said.
While she believes the problem starts at a young age, she knows it does not end there. Today, American’s eat 34 percent of meals outside the home, compared with 18 percent in the 1970s. Wootan, who considers herself one of the nation’s leading experts on restaurant foods, says portion sizes are out of control.
“You can easily get a whole day’s worth of calories in a single sitting at a restaurant,” she said.
Wootan said there are 10 state legislatures that have proposed putting calories ammounts on menus at restaurants. Maine is one of them.
Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, introduced a bill last session that Wootan believes has a lot of promise.
“I think there’s some momentum here in Maine,” she said. “The legislation that Representative Sean Faircloth introduced was probably the most comprehensive obesity-prevention bill introduced in the whole country.”
Wootan also believes that communities have to make adjustments to better serve the daily activities of their people. She advocates support of public transportation and the maintenance of sidewalks, bike lanes, walking trails and safe routes to school.
Wootan has another reason to believe in the future of health in Maine. Jonathan Shenken, a UMaine professor and a member of the Maine Commission to Study Public Health, which came out with a comprehensive set of recommendations to address obesity, is allied with her and joined her at the conference in Augusta on Wednesday.
Shenken knows the fight for a healthier America won’t be easy. He is hopeful, but he is also concerned.
“So far from what I hear the food industry is strongly voicing their opinion,” she said. “People are listening.”
