[Corey Hebert] We'd like to welcome Shiriki Kumanyika, the incoming president
of the APHA. Welcome [Shiriki Kumanyika] Thank you. [CH] Let's start of with obesity.
It's a big problem. We're seeing increased rates. Why do you think that's the case?
[SK] We'll we're seeing one positive trend in some parts of the population
the rates of obesity are not going up like they have been over the past couple
of decades,
they're stabilizing and maybe even going down in some places.
But there are several other aspects of what we're seeing that are
of great concern. One is that rates are still going up
in men. People think about women a lot but rates are going up in men and boys.
There's more of the severe obesity so more people in the heavier end of the range.
Some of the highest-risk groups which are
racial and ethic minorities or low-income populations,
the rates are still going up or they're not improving and
then I think we also should stress that even if we were to stabilize everything
now
the rates are very high. So you've got a third
of the adult population, if you count conservatively, in obesity, or you've got
two-thirds of the population who are actually not in the healthy weight range
and children they're not that high, but the same thing, quite a few children
already have obesity or are at
high risk for having it. [CH] What public health ramifications do you think we can
see in America because of the
increasing rates of obesity in Americans? [SK] Well we're already seeing the
ramifications, we're seeing diabetes,
what used to be adult onset diabetes in children
and adolescence, which is of great concern because that means the rest of their
lives they're going to be struggling with this problem.
We're seeing more diabetes in the adult population, it's just going up
in parallel with the obesity rates
and these have consequences for
other diseases as well and
there are more general fitness and health issues for the workforce and so
you think about
you know, with this much overweight and obesity, the population is not,
it's not a fit workforce, military readiness comes up,
health care costs, all of these things, they are already in place and they're
gonna be hard to roll back even if we were to
turn it around today, we've got a lot already
you know, in place. [CH] So how do you think we can reconcile these numbers with the
increasing numbers of children going to school hungry
or living in food deserts? [SK] Yeah that's interesting
in the, on the global scene, people call this a double burden where you have
some people who don't have enough to eat and some people who have
too much. But the problems are linked and in this country you have people who
don't have consistent access to enough food or the foods around them or
the ones they can afford
are the lowest quality foods, you know, high-calorie
but low quality in other respects. So we're concerned about
the children who are hungry for that reason but then the more general problem
which affects everyone is that the kinds of foods that are heavily promoted
and are available everywhere, you know, everywhere you turn
are not the best quality foods and they may taste good
and be easy to get but they're not
what we need to be eating. And so these problems can, you know, those food are
easy to overeat, so these problems can coexist and
in some cases in women there's been evidence that the
women who are food insecure are actually more likely to be overweight,
may be eating the cheapest foods and giving the better foods to their
children.
[CH] So what can public health advocates do? [SK] Well I love talking about the solution
and this is a great meeting to figure this out because it's healthography and
what that means is making the places where you live
better for your health, making
choices that are good for your health easier, so there'll be a lot of sessions
at this
meeting about how you change the environment to make it easy to be
physically active,
how you change food environments. I think what advocates can do at the national
level is support
these big programs that help people to eat a better diet
like the SNAP program, the WIC program,
the school food programs, because they get right to the highest-risk
populations
and also support policies that change the environment, transportation policies
and so forth.
[CH] Well thank you for your time Dr. Kumanyika. [SK] OK.