Obesity now contributes to the death of more than 360,000 Americans a year. The incidence of childhood obesity is now at epidemic levels. Alarm bells are going off all over the place. But our government has done virtually nothing.
— Tom Harkin
Unbelievable Obesity Epidemic quotations
If we are serious about combating the childhood obesity epidemic and improving child nutrition, then everyone must chip in -- parents, schools, and yes even Congress.
The rise of childhood obesity has placed the health of an entire generation at risk.
Very simply, we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots. While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest.
More than a billion adults worldwide are now overweight - and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese. Childhood obesity is already epidemic in some areas and on the rise in others. Worldwide, an estimated 17.6 million children under five are said to be overweight.
We have an epidemic of obese six-month-olds.
We actually have an epidemic of obese newborns. They don't diet and exercise. How do you explain that? It's what the mother consumed. Well, who told her to do that? The obstetricians.
It has always been the role of government to help solve problems, including and especially health crises. Obesity is a health epidemic across our country, and we have a responsibility as a government and a society to do all we can to promote good nutrition and healthy eating so we can reverse this alarming trend.
I want to be the poster child for taking care of yourself after 40.
Obesity is an epidemic in this country and I'm a living, breathing example of what it means to stay healthy.
Epidemic obesity is unquestionably a health crisis in the United States, and for that matter, in much of the world. But it is a crisis in slow motion, one that has crept up on us over years, and even decades.
There is an obesity epidemic. One out of every three Americans... weighs as much as the other two.
How much obesity has to be created in a single decade for people to realize that diet has to be responsible for it?
For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measureable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time.
I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America.
To amplify our efforts, USDA is joining with First Lady Michelle Obama in aggressively promoting the 'Let's Move' campaign, which will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources.
Right now we also have this epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
The obesity epidemic among American children is becoming so bad that I think there's a growing realization across the country that we've got to change what we're feeding our kids and that school may be a really good place to start.
The infant mortality rates are insanely high.
The obesity epidemic is on the rise. It is all related.
I'm not saying that McDonald's gift certificates caused the obesity epidemic, but in retrospect, the timing is kind of suspicious.
The facts are in, the science is beyond question.
Sugar in all its forms is the root cause of our obesity epidemic and most of the chronic disease sucking the life out of our citizens and our economy - and, increasingly, the rest of the world. You name it, it’s caused by sugar: heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even acne, infertility and impotence.
We are spending millions, if not billions of dollars every year on programs to fight the childhood obesity epidemic while giving almost $2 billion of taxpayer money to the junk food and fast food industries to make the epidemic worse.