Here & Now

New CDC Report Shows Obesity Increase with Low-Income Kids

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to more health-related news. This week the Centers for Disease Control reported that 18 states have seen a drop in childhood obesity in the past five years. Wisconsin is not among them. Obesity among poor children in Wisconsin is of particular concern. Nationwide a little more than 12% of pre-schoolers from low income homes are obese. In Wisconsin that number is 31%. According to the non-profit health advocacy agency, Health First Wisconsin, a predicted 2.7 billion dollars will be spent this year alone in Wisconsin on health costs related to obesity in all age brackets. Maureen Busalacchi is the executive director of Health First Wisconsin. Thanks for being here.

Maureen Busalacchi:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

How surprised were you when you saw the numbers from the CDC that, in fact, Wisconsin did not reduce its childhood obesity rate?

Maureen Busalacchi:

I thought that was probably what the data would show. Because Wisconsin does some things well, but we haven’t taken all the steps we can take in order to reduce those rates.

Frederica Freyberg:

What kinds of steps do you think we should take?

Maureen Busalacchi:

I think we need to move from guidelines to standards in terms of our daycare and making sure we have healthy foods that are absolutely part of the menu when you take your child to daycare. Also, making sure that there is plenty of physical activity for those children.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because related to that, one of the things the CDC found, according to its report, that works is having these standards in childcare provider homes or centers where they have to get healthy food and a certain amount of exercise. Again, we have guidelines that they don’t– that they can or don’t have to follow?

Maureen Busalacchi:

Right, they don’t have to follow. And, you know, we all hear the stories, donut holes being served, and that kind of thing. I don’t think most of our day-care centers are like that, but we can do better and be very clear about eliminating sugar sweetened beverages for kids as well. That’s a really key part. There is a high correlation between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and obesity rates.

Frederica Freyberg:

When we’re talking about that we aren’t just necessarily talking about those huge sodas that people talk about, but fruit juice and that kind of thing that is sugared.

Maureen Busalacchi:

Well, right. 100% pure fruit juice is fine in limited quantities. But there are so many juices out there, and it’s very confusing to the consumer, that have added sugars to it. And that isn’t healthy for us, as well as soda. Soda consumption is too high among the 2 to 5-year-olds.

Frederica Freyberg:

Other than kind of the difference between set standards and guidelines, are there Wisconsin-specific factors that make our children more prone to obesity than the children nationwide?

Maureen Busalacchi:

Well, actually Wisconsin is kind of just above the halfway point in terms of obesity rates. So we’re certainly not doing as bad as, you know, more than half the country. But we could certainly do better, especially with our natural resources and all of the farming that goes on in our state. We need to make sure that those farmers are producing food that we can use in our day-care centers and in our schools and our hospitals and our community centers.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because I understand they are really kind of deserts of healthy foods, particularly in cities where there might be large number of low income people.

Maureen Busalacchi:

I think there are definitely deserts in cities, but we also find them in rural areas. When the crops are being just for commodity, you find that you don’t have as many fresh fruits and vegetables available in many of those areas as well. And that’s something that many of us are working on around the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

What role do– I mean, we talk a lot about childcare providers or schools. What role does the family physician have in trying to help this population, and all populations, prevent and reduce obesity?

Maureen Busalacchi:

We think they should engage in public policy, making sure that we have the environment that makes it easy to be healthy. So that’s definitely a role I think physicians should be playing and taking a leadership role in. In some places they are prescribing certain amounts of vegetables and fruits and elimination of sugar-sweetened beverages. But our legislature has taken us a step back by saying that local governments can’t regulate food. This is a problem, because this is where we learn. This is how we innovate, and this is how Wisconsin has been a leader in the past in terms of figuring out what works. And by limiting that, I think we’re cutting ourselves off.

Frederica Freyberg:

Alright. Maureen Busalacchi, thank you very much.

Maureen Busalacchi:

Thank you.