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Americans need to get fit
by Mary Ann Roser, AUSTIN-AMERICAN STATESMAN
Jan. 24, 2003

Americans eat too much, exercise too little and rack up diabetes, heart trouble and other chronic illnesses at alarming rates -- all prompting a disease prevention forum and a $125 million Bush administrative initiative announced Thursday by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Thompson was in Austin to conduct the third of four town hall meetings about health care sponsored by the nonprofit Public Forum Institute.

"More than 60 percent of Americans are overweight," Thompson said, adding that he's lost 10 pounds and aims to lose 10 more. "I've got the whole department on a diet."

In the upcoming fiscal 2004 budget, Bush is proposing that Congress approve $125 million for a new "healthy cities" initiative that would provide money for walking trails and other programs aimed at preventing diabetes, obesity and asthma, Thompson told several hundred people at the forum in a downtown Austin hotel.

"Imagine if Austin were declared a healthy city . . .  if everybody in the city was out and losing weight, walking," Thompson said. "It would be a wonderful thing."

Thompson also trotted out a Bush administration proposal to spend $1.75 billion over the next five years to help disabled Americans make the transition from nursing homes and other institutions to living in their communities. That program includes $417 million for the upcoming year.

Three things Texans can do to improve their health and extend their lives, Thompson said, are: be active, don't smoke and eat fruits and vegetables. So many of the chronic illness that strike 125 million Americans are preventable, he said.

"It's not so much that we die," said another speaker, aerobics guru Dr. Kenneth Cooper of Dallas. "It's that we kill ourselves."

Texas Health Commissioner Eduardo Sanchez, on the panel with Thompson, said the state's future is cloudy because so many minority children are overweight, don't go to college and become adults who drain health-care resources. Hispanics and blacks are on the way to becoming the majority population in Texas.

"The physical health of Texas will determine its fiscal health," Sanchez said. "This is a watershed moment for Texas -- and for America," which will follow the demographic trend.

Sanchez said in an interview that the forum was refreshing because prevention programs, such as physical education, good nutrition and vaccinations, make healthier lives. Texas ranked last in the nation in childhood immunizations in 2000 but improved to 43rd place in 2001, with about 75 percent of children vaccinated. His goal is to push the rate to about 90 percent by the end of the decade.

Austin has a reputation as a healthy, fit city and was chosen for the forum because of that track record, said Pam Stevens, a spokeswoman in Thompson's office. Similar discussions were held in Minneapolis and Jacksonville, Fla., and a fourth is planned for Los Angeles.

While in Austin, Thompson dined with fellow Republicans, Gov. Rick Perry and slimmed-down Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who did the cooking. And, yes, Thompson said, they ate their vegetables. 

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