Fwd: RE: Legislation Alert: H.R. 3177

[jikeda at socrates.berkeley.edu]

>Now we can each make up our own minds about this bill...Joanne




>Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise (LIFE) Act (Introduced in the 

>House)

>

>HR 3177

>Sponsor: Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes (introduced 10/28/1999)

>Latest Major Action: 11/5/1999 Referred to House subcommittee

>

>Title: To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a national 

>program to conduct and support activities toward the goal of significantly 

>reducing the number of cases of overweight and obesity among individuals 

>in the  United States.

>__________________________________________________________________

>

>

>                                              106th CONGRESS

>

>                                                  1st Session

>

>                                                  H. R. 3177

>

>                                 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

>

>                                              October 28, 1999

>

>Mr. NORTON introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 

>Committee on Commerce

>                                           A BILL

>To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a national program 

>to conduct and support activities toward the goal of significantly 

>reducing the number of cases of overweight and obesity among individuals 

>in the United States.

>

>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

>States of America in Congress assembled,

>

>SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

>

>        This Act may be cited as the `Lifelong Improvements in Food and 

> Exercise (LIFE) Act'.

>

>SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

>

>        The Congress finds as follows:

>

>               (1) Obesity has increased by more than 50 percent among 

> adults and 100 percent among children and adolescents in just the past 15 

> years.

>

>               (2) Fifty percent of women over 20 are overweight.

>

>               (3) Obesity is associated with many of the leading causes 

> of death and disability, including heart disease, diabetes, certain forms 

> of arthritis and cancer.

>

>               (4) The rising rates of obesity portend greater disease, 

> disability and early death, and concomitant rises in health care costs 

> and lost wages and productivity.

>

>               (5) Overweight among women is significantly outstripping 

> overweight among men, and the problem is getting worse decade by decade.

>

>               (6) Almost 25 percent of young people, ages 6-17, are 

> overweight and the percentage who are seriously overweight has doubled in 

> the last 30 years.

>

>               (7) One third of young people ages 12-21 do not regularly 

> engage in physical exercise.

>

>               (8) Part of the reason for youth inactivity is the 

> reduction in daily participation in high school physical education 

> classes from 42 percent in 1991 to 27 percent in 1997.

>

>               (9) The lack of activity combined with poor eating habits 

> among children carries over to adulthood; 25 percent of adults are 

> totally inactive and 60 percent of whom engage in too little physical activity.

>

>               (10) Chronic diseases account for 70 percent of deaths in 

> this country and 60 percent of medical care expenditures.

>

>SEC. 3. REDUCTION IN PREVALENCE OF OBESITY; PROGRAM FOR LIFELONG

>IMPROVEMENTS IN FOOD AND EXERCISE.

>

>        Part B of title III of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 

> 243 et seq.) is amended by inserting after

>        section 317G the following section:

>

>`REDUCTION IN PREVALENCE OF OBESITY

>

>        `SEC. 317H. (a) IN GENERAL- The Secretary, acting through the 

> Director of the Centers for Disease

>        Control and Prevention, shall carry out a national program to 

> conduct and support activities regarding individuals who are overweight 

> or obese in order to make progress toward the goal of significantly 

> reducing the number of cases of obesity among individuals in the United States.

>

>        `(b) CERTAIN ACTIVITIES- In carrying out subsection (a), the 

> Secretary shall (directly or through grants or contracts) carry out the 

> following with respect to individuals who are overweight:

>

>               `(1) Activities to train health professionals to recognize 

> that patients are overweight and to recommend prevention activities 

> regarding such condition, including educating patients on the 

> relationship between such condition and cardiovascular disease, diabetes 

> and other health conditions, and on proper nutrition and regular physical 

> activities.

>

>               `(2) Activities to educate the public with respect to the 

> condition of being overweight, including the development of a strategy 

> for a public awareness campaign.

>

>               `(3) The development and demonstration of intervention 

> strategies for use at worksites and in community settings such as 

> hospitals and community health centers.

>

>        `(c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- For the purpose of carrying 

> out this section, there are authorized to be appropriated $15,000,000 for 

> fiscal year 2000, and such sums as may be necessary for each of the 

> fiscal years 2001 through 2004.'.

>

>

>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

>

>                                                 January 6, 2000

>

>         NORTON PROMOTES BILL TO COMBAT OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY WITH DR. C.

>                                              EVERETT KOOP

>

>           Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) 

> today was a featured speaker at a press conference sponsored by Shape-Up 

> America, led by Dr. C. Everett Koop, to emphasize ways to reduce what 

> Norton said is, "a full blown health crisis and truly a national epidemic 

> of overweight and obesity in this country." She spoke about her bill, 

> H.R. 3177, the Lifelong Improvements in Food and

>  Exercise Act (LIFE), that would require the Centers for Disease Control 

> to launch a comprehensive nationwide program to combat overweight and 

> obesity, working closely with states and localities to test

>practical interventions, coordinate communications campaigns, and educate 

>health professionals. Norton said the national effort is at least 15 years 

>overdue because obesity has increased by more than 50% among adults and 

>100% among children and adolescents. Her complete statement follows.

>

>                                                    * * *

>

>           I am pleased to join Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. Barbara Moore 

> of Shape-Up America, as well asDr. Pamela Peeke and to congratulate them 

> for their pathbreaking leadership. They are well ahead of the Congress, 

> state and local officials, schools and colleges, the health care 

> profession itself and most of the others who should be assisting in the 

> leadership on the major health issue of overweight and obesity. Iwelcome 

> the work and the leadership of the entire public/private/governmental 

> Partnership for Healthy

>  Weight Management, and I believe that they are in the vanguard of an 

> issue whose time has not only come but should have come years ago for the 

> nation. As it is now, we have a full blown health crisis and a  truly 

> national epidemic of overweight and obesity in this country.

>

>           As a Member of Congress, I am focused on what to do about this 

> health crisis and how public policy measures can help. Overweight, 

> obesity, and sedentary lifestyles are creating a major constellation of 

> health problems and risks beginning at far earlier ages than ever before. 

> The greatest public threat is that preventable disease will overwhelm a 

> health care system already at huge risk from the sheer numbers of baby 

> boomers who will soon saturate it. The country has not found the will to 

> expand health care to the uninsured and underinsured. Now, we run the 

> risk of overwhelming the health care system with entirely

>preventable diseases, such as heart disease, the nation's number one 

>killer, if large changes in lifestyles do not take hold.

>

>           In a country where health indicators are supposed to improve, 

> the national regression on weight, nutrition, and physical activity sends 

> a high-voltage wake-up call. The forces that have encouraged weight gain 

> and discouraged physical activity are neither sinister nor 

> conspiratorial. Increasingly delicious and highly advertised retail and 

> restaurant food, fat-saturated fast food, computers, computer games, and 

> cable TV all have combined to encourage a lifestyle greatly at odds with 

> good health. This seemingly benign mixture in fact is ultimately lethal, 

> but its elements are now firmly rooted in American life. Only a major 

> national effort can help Americans sort out the competing pressures.

>

>           I have therefore introduced H.R. 3177, the Lifelong 

> Improvements in Food and Exercise Act--or LIFE. The underlying theme of 

> the bill is that unhealthy lifestyles have gained such a foothold in 

> every part of the country that only a major national intervention can 

> affect existing runaway patterns in time.The predicate for the bill is 

> perhaps best summarized in one set of the most alarming statistics: In just the

>past 15 years, obesity has increased more than 50% among adults and an 

>astonishingly 100% among children and adolescents. Just as my bill was 

>introduced, the Journal of the American Medical Association

>  devoted an entire issue to obesity and overweight. A Centers for Disease 

> Control (CDC) study in the issue confirms the epidemic in every state, 

> age group, race, both sexes, and without regard to smoking status. 

> Perhaps the most disheartening and counterintuitive findings were that 

> the greatest increase in obesity was

>  found not among the least educated but among those with some college 

> education (10.6%- 17.8%) and not among the middle aged but among 18-29 

> year-olds (7.1%-12.1%). Women are doing worse than men,

>  with more than 3 million women more than 100 pounds above their 

> recommended body weight.

>

>   My bill would start the country off with an achievable approach and 

> appropriation, and it was well received by Chairman John Porter when I 

> went to testify personally before the Labor- HHS Subcommittee. LIFE was 

> introduced only a few weeks before the 1999 session ended, but an inquiry 

> I received just this week indicates that my bill is likely to be taken up 

> by my own leadership and to get signers from across the aisle as well. 

> Its price tag of $15 million is far more modest than required but much 

> more than ever before committed in so focused a way to weight management 

> and is calculated at

>  an amount that can actually get through the House and the Senate. The 

> LIFE bill is designed as a national initiative to tackle the 300,000 

> instances of preventable diseases that, according to the CDC, result each

>  year from unhealthy diets and physical inactivity. LIFE requires four 

> basics of the CDC: to design and launch a comprehensive nationwide 

> program of physical activity and obesity prevention programs working 

> closely to help states and localities; to test practical intervention 

> strategies in work sites and communities; to coordinate communications 

> campaigns; and to educate health professionals. A CDC LIFE program would 

> include all Americans, but would place special emphasis on populations 

> that have been

>   least responsive to lifestyle dangers, including children, young 

> people, and women. Importantly, the CDC would study and measure the 

> results so that only the most effective and credible programs are spread

>  nationally.

>

>  A $15 million national effort hardly registers in the federal budget, 

> especially when compared to thebillions in health care costs and the 

> millions in lives that would be saved. Overweight and inactivity are 

> creating their own health crisis. The rapid development of lifestyle 

> health risks up and down the age scale can be reversed. The program 

> announced here today and many others, combined with a concerted national 

> statutory partnership across the major sectors as well as enactment of 

> the LIFE bill are what is

>  required.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>                         FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

>

>                                                October 28, 1999

>

>         NORTON INTRODUCES BILL TO MOBILIZE NATION AGAINST OVERWEIGHT 

> ANDOBESITY

>

>           Washington, D.C.-- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) 

> today introduced the Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise Act 

> (LIFE), a national initiative to attack growing problems of overweight 

> and obesity now found in Americans of every age, race, and 

> majordemographic group. LIFE would provide $15 million in funding to the 

> Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC) for a major effort to reverse 

> increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets high in fat and sugar. The 

> bill was filed a day after the Journal of the American Medical 

> Association,devoting its entire issue to obesity, reported that "obesity 

> increased in every state, in both sexes,and across all age groups, races, 

> education level, and smoking statuses."

>

>  Congresswoman Norton wrote this bill because of startling statistics 

> that she believes will

>  overwhelm the healthcare system unless the risks are impressed among the 

> public. Obesity has increased by more than 50% among adults and 100% 

> among children over the past 15 years.

>These problems are worse in women-- 50% of women over the age of 25 are 

>overweight, and 3 million women are over 100 pounds overweight. Young 

>people are no better off-- one-quarter of young people are overweight. The 

>consequences of overweight and obesity show up in higher rates of heart 

>disease, stroke, and other avoidable health problems.

>

>           LIFE directs the CDC to pursue obesity and sedentary lifestyles 

> in three ways: train health professionals to recognize the signs of 

> obesity early and educate people concerning healthful alternatives, such 

> as proper nutrition and regular exercise; conduct public education 

> campaigns to teach the public about how to recognize and address 

> overweight and obesity; and develop intervention strategies to be used in 

> everyday life in worksites and community settings. The Congresswoman said 

> that the LIFE bill is the minimum necessary to avoid a new health care 

> crisis. Already, chronic diseases, many of which are caused or 

> exacerbated by overweight or obesity, account for 70% of deaths and 60% 

> of all health care expenditures.

>

>  Norton said that a focused national health initiative is necessary 

> because "unhealthy

>lifestyles have become a normal part of everyday life." Participation in 

>high school physical

>  education classes has plummeted from 42% in 1991 to 27% in 1997, 

> accounting at least for part of the reason that one-third of young people 

> 12-21 do not regularly engage in physical activities. The figures for 

> adults are worse, with a decisive majority, or 60%, engaging in too 

> little exercise

>  to have any health benefits, and 25% not exercising at all.

>

>Changes in nutrition are equally critical, according to Norton, citing 

>"fast food as one likely

>  culprit." She said that 80% of young people consume too much fat, a 

> factor in the doubling in the percentage of overweight youth 6-17 over 

> the past 30 years.

>

>  Congresswoman Norton said that her legislation was important to 

> "mobilize the country now before entirely preventable health conditions 

> that begin in children overwhelm the nation's health care system."


Joanne P. Ikeda,MA,RD
Co Director
Center on Weight and Health

Cooperative Extension Nutrition Education Specialist
Department of Nutritional Sciences
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3104

Phone (510)642-2790
FAX (510)642-0535
E-Mail: jikeda at socrates.berkeley.edu