Health Experts Call For Changes To Food Environment As CDC Research Shows Rising Obesity Rates.
With obesity rates in the US at “a new high,” public health experts are calling for “an aggressive shift in strategy – one that would change the food environment through initiatives such as soda taxes,” USA Today (10/17, Toy) reports.
Traditional “public health efforts have centered on communicating messages about what is healthy in the hopes of changing people’s behavior,” but new research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics shows a steady increase in obesity rates among US adults, up from 30.5 percent in 1999-2000 to 39.8 percent in 2015-2016.
The article cites “Craig Hales, the study’s lead researcher and a medical epidemiologist at the CDC,” and notes that “physician Jerome Adams, who was sworn in as surgeon general in August, on Monday cited obesity as among the Department of Health and Human Services’ three top priorities,” with the other two being mental health and addiction.
