Keynote: The Wrong Epidemic

About five years ago, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock hounded me to be in his documentary movie about the obesity epidemic. His concept: Eat only McDonald’s food for 30 straight days, and see what it did to his metabolism…

...Supersize Me won Spurlock the Sundance Film Festival’s Best Director Award in the documentary category. He was also nominated for an Academy Award.

America has declared war on the obesity epidemic. We’re told that one-third of adults now have a Body Mass Index over 30, a level considered obese by the medical world because of the health risks it engenders… The only thing worse than the fact that we’ll be the heaviest American generation ever, is that our children will be even heavier. Can you imagine?

Projections of the federal budget deficit show steeply climbing line-graphs going veritably vertical about 2015 or so, with Baby-Boomers hitting the Lipitor age with full force. Forget Social Security, which has a mere projected burden of $2 trillion annually by 2050. It’s Medicaid, clocking in at $2.67 trillion a year and rising, that will really bust the bank…

…Obesity is just the tip of the chronic disease iceberg. What we should be talking about are twin epidemics of physical inactivity and poor nutrition…

…From a broader perspective, we also have to create more walkable communities—where physical activity is convenient and integrated into daily life…

I’ve spent a lot of time traveling the United States over the past years, and one thing has become clear—you can have the best intentions in the world to exercise, but if your community makes it costly, dangerous, or even just inconvenient to do so, it’s not going to happen.

At the same time, you may not be planning to be active, but if your community makes it safe, convenient, cheap and appealing, it’s likely to happen without you even realizing it. Your activity may come from a walk to the corner store instead of around a track, but with the right kind of community, it can happen.