Weighty matters: Health-care proposal would provide incentives for wellness, prevention

August 2, 2009
by Editorial Staff
Beaver County Times

The Chicago Tribune reports that two-thirds of adults and one out of every five children in the United States are obese or overweight.

Yet in 1980, according to a recent report by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the national average for adult obesity was 15 percent. The American Heart Association estimates the rate of obesity has doubled and tripled in children and teenagers respectively since 1980.

Clearly, a change in lifestyle, not genetic factors, is driving the increase - and pushing up health-care costs.

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