My Word: Florida aims to shed obesity's weight

Data indicate that Central Floridians have not been immune to widening waistlines: 27.8 percent of Orange County adults and 27.2 percent of all Florida adults were obese in 2010. From 2009 to 2011, Orange County's three-year age-adjusted death rates for heart disease, stroke and diabetes in adults ? all weight-related diseases and conditions ? were higher than the overall state rates.

Health-care professionals, hospitals, civic groups, families, businesses, schools, legislators, communities and every Floridian should take notice of this expanding problem. In Florida, one in four high-school students and one in two adults are overweight or obese. This unhealthy weight leads to a higher risk of chronic illnesses, such as hypertension, diabetes, asthma, cancer and arthritis.

The number of obese adults is on course to escalate dramatically in Florida over the next 20 years, according to a report released by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The toll from chronic weight-related diseases on personal livelihood and lifestyle is unacceptable; the consequences from the associated health-care costs are unsustainable.

In the next two decades without change, obesity will add more than two million new cases of diabetes, six million new cases of coronary heart disease and stroke, five million new cases of hypertension, three million new cases of arthritis, and nearly nine million new cases of obesity-related cancers in Florida.

To become the healthiest state in the nation, we must work together to address this top public health threat. By applying best practice that uses evidence-based research and coordinates local private and public initiatives, we can promote a healthier way of life.

Achieving an individual's healthy weight begins by taking the first of many ongoing steps toward a healthier lifestyle.

A community discussion at the Surgeon General's Symposium in Orlando on Monday will launch this statewide initiative of the Florida Department of Health. We are committed to collaboration that puts Florida on track to be the state with the healthiest weight in the nation.

John Armstrong is Florida's surgeon general and secretary of health.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/orlandosentinel/news/opinion/~3/Rlkfbk3dPB4/story01.htm

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