8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAS
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
HEALTH
Budget cuts diminish child obesity prevention
Pro-exercise VERB campaign cut despite results
BY LAURAN NEERGAARD ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - One-fifth of children are likely to be obese by 2010, yet the government killed a promising program that portrayed exercise as cool.
Other efforts to turn the tide of childhood obesity are scattershot and don't have enough money, the Institute of Medicine said Wednesday.
The institute did find some encouraging signs that the threat to children's health is being taken seriously. Programs that target youngsters' growing waistlines are spruiting nationwide, it said.
But no one knows which programs really help kids slim down, the institute said, calling for research to identify the best methods.
More troubling is that the country lacks the national leadership needed to speed change, lamented an expert panel convened by the scientific group.
"Is this as important as stockpiling antibiotics or buying vaccines? I think it is," said Jeffrey Koplan, vice president of academic health affairs at Emory University, who led the IOM's panel. "This is a major health problem. It is of a different nature than acute infectious threats, but it needs to be taken just as seriously."
To reinforce that point, Wednesday's report spotlighted the government's VERB campaign, a program once touted as spurring a 30 percent increase in exercise among the preteens it reached. It ended this year with Bush administration budget cuts.
VERB encouraged 9- to 13-year-olds to take part in physical activities. Slick ads, costing $59 million last year, portrayed exercise as cool at an age when outdoor play typically winds down and adolescent slothfulness sets in.
The program's demise "calls into question the commitment to obesity prevention within government," the panel concluded.
Koplan, a former CDC director, was more blunt, calling it a waste of taxpayer money to develop a program that works and then dismantle it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is "trying to do everything we can to package the research and lessons learned from VERB so it can inform campaigns local groups might take on throughout the country," responded CDC spokesman Jeff McKenna.
The report cites other examples of promising federal programs that have yet to reach their potential. Kids gobbled fruits and vegetables in an Agriculture Department school snack program, but it only reaches 14 states. And CDC's main anti-obesity initiative had enough money this year to fund just 28 states starting childhood nutrition and exercise programs.
The report also lauded some creative state and local efforts, including:
-A California program, started in Marin County, to build new sidewalks and bike paths that's getting more children to walk or bike to school.
A community garden project in New York City's Harlem neighborhood to increase inner-city youngsters' access to healthful food and safe recreation.
—An effort by Arkansas schools to notify parents when students are overweight. Combined with new school menus and physical activity programs, the initiative recently reported a leveling off of the states child obesity rate.
The IOM, which advises the government on health matters, in 2004 called for a joint attack on childhood obesity by parents, schools, communities, the food industry and government. Wednesday's report was the first checkup.
"We still are not doing enough to prevent childhood obesity, and the problem is getting worse," Koplan concluded. "The current level of public and private sector investments does not match the extent of the problem."
More than individual programs, full-scale social change is needed for healthful eating and physical activity to become the norm, added panelist Toni Yancey, of the University of California-Los Angeles.
Some 17 percent of U.S. youngsters already are obese, and millions more are overweight. Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, sleep problems and other disorders.
Wednesday's report shows "what the country is doing is like putting a Band-Aid on a brain tumor," said Margo Wootan of the consumer advocacy Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Round and round he goes
Travis Morisse/THE HUTCHINSON NEWS
Seth Allen, 1, rides the Carousel with his mother, Amy, Tuesday at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. The fair begins on Sept. 8 and continues through Sept. 17. The Miller Band is the Fair's headlining act, and will play on Sunday night.
POLITICS
Gay affair admitted on show
BY ANGELA DELLI SANTI ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON, N.J. — Former Gov. James E. McGreevey revealed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he was having an affair with another man while his wife was hospitalized for the birth of their child, according to audience members.
A dozen friends of McGreevy who attended had to sign confidentiality agreements for Regan Books,
which is publishing McGreevey's political memoir. The hourlong program will be broadcast Sept. 19, the day McGreevey's much-anticipated "The Confession," hits bookstores and he embarks on a national book tour.
The nation's first openly gay governor told Winfrey he believed he was in love with the man, who would become a central figure in his downfall, said two audience members who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. Winfrey asked them not to divulge the contents of the broadcast, which was taped in Chicago on Tuesday.
McGreevey, 49, stunned the nation on Aug. 12, 2004, when he said he had been involved in an affair with a man and would resign. McGreevey later identified the man as Golan Cipel, though Cipel has repeatedly denied being gay. The lawyer who represented Cipel, Allen Lowy, would not comment Wednesday.
In the interview, the audience members said Winfrey explores McGreevey's lifelong struggle with his sexuality.
McGreevey recounted going to the library as an adolescent to look up the word "homosexual" in a dictionary. When he found it included terms like "perverse" and "psychiatric disorder," the Irish-Catholic said he quickly learned to repress his feelings, audience members said.
The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from a list of mental disorders in 1973.
The interview also explores how McGreevey came out to his wife and parents, how his life is more authentic today, and what life is like with Australian financial adviser Mark O'Donnell, whom he refers to as his "life partner", the audience members said.
McGreevey has been publicly silent since stepping out of the public eye. A lawyer, he has pursued education policy initiatives, including work on behalf of a Kean University campus in China.
Lauren Anderson
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Abby Fisher
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Claire Heilman
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Stephani Horner
Lindsay Jordan
Grace Kachigian
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Amanda Lewis
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Mindy Mihalchik
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Alex Panagakos
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Jamie Sutera
Lauren Timmons
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