In 2010, Air Force Major Gen. Frank R. Faykes made a speech in support of passing the Child Nutrition Bill, which was drafted with the intention of removing junk food from vending machines and taking other measures to improve nutrition in schools. The retired officer was anxious to bring certain facts to the attention of America: mainly, that one-fourth of all high school graduates in the country were too fat to be accepted into the armed services.
This stumbling block to the nation’s security and military readiness he characterized as “very troubling,” because once the 17-to-24-year-old high-school dropouts and people with criminal records were factored in, only seven out of 10 theoretically eligible recruits would actually be acceptable. In other words, the majority of the nation’s youth were not in good enough shape to be trained to destroy enemies while preserving their own lives.
Gen. Faykes also advocated for early learning opportunities that would result in improved graduation statistics, and also reduce teen criminal activity. Most importantly, he urged Americans to find the political courage to invest in people long-term. The news story concluded,
“You don’t see a return on it for a decade,” he said, but every dollar applied to early education results in a savings of $16 later in the criminal justice system. “Today’s military may be high-tech, but our real asset is our people.”
Around the same time, journalist April Wortham quoted U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin on the subject of the U.S. workforce overall. Benjamin addressed a crowd in Nashville, Tennessee, a state in which more than one-third of the kids from 10 to 17 were either overweight or obese, on the specific subject of childhood obesity. One of her remarks was,
If kids are having high blood pressure or heart disease when they’re 19 or 20 years old, you’re not going to have a work force out there.
Two years later, many Americans watched with alarm the HBO four-part series entitled The Weight of the Nation. Its purpose was to inform Americans about the causes of the obesity epidemic, and which symptoms to look out for, what treatments and solutions were available, and what the future might hold.
The four episodes were titled “Consequences,” “Choices,” “Children in Crisis,” and “Challenges.” The challenges then were much the same as now. Obesity opponents are up against cultural factors, dieting myths, the inadvertent causing of harm in pursuit of improvement, the noisy debates against drug use, extreme dieting, bariatric surgery, and more. The series also took a hard look at the future of such professions and public services as soldiering, firefighting, police work, and other fields, in the face of ever-diminishing fitness.
Points were also made about popular preferences, industrial imperatives, and “government policies dating back decades.” The piece included the words,
The relatively inexpensive food that most Americans consume every day may seem like a good deal, but in fact is a very expensive proposition. Unaccounted for in the price are, among other things, the future health care costs associated with heart disease, diabetes, and other obesity-related diseases. This examines a long-term strategy for trying to improve the American diet.
SFGate reporter David Wiegand characterized the series as “a chilling look at physical, financial costs of a U.S. crisis.” Obesity contributes to five of the 10 leading causes of death in America, costs businesses more than $73 billion a year, adds $150 billion to health costs now, and may hit $300 billion by 2018.
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Source: “Childhood obesity has huge impact on military readiness,’ PilotOnline.com, 11/10/10
Source: “Surgeon General: Childhood obesity endangers future workforce,” BizJournals.com, 11/16/10
Source: “The Weight of the Nation,” HBO Max, 2012
Source: “’The Weight of the Nation’ review: Obesity crisis,” SFGate.com, 05/10/12
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