Date:
June 5, 2012
Time:
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Venue:
Bipartisan Policy Center
Address:
1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC, 20005
File Attachments:
A bipartisan group of former cabinet secretaries released a comprehensive and actionable plan to improve America’s physical and fiscal crises, driven by the alarming rates of obesity and chronic disease today. Former Secretaries of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Ann M. Veneman and former Secretaries of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala and Mike Leavitt released the recommendations today, calling needed attention to our mounting health care spending, which is expected to reach $4.6 trillion dollars annually by 2020 and consume 19.8% of GDP.
The report, entitled, Lots to Lose: How America’s Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future, from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative, calls on the public and private sectors to collaborate in creating healthy families, schools, workplaces and communities, focusing on existing best practices that can be implemented on a large scale to broaden their impact and help scale back obesity in the U.S. The co-chairs recognize that given America’s limited federal resources, any effective plan to reduce obesity and health care costs will need to engage private sector partners and build on successful examples, targeting those actions with the most promise to bring about large-scale shifts over time.
Read the full press release here.
Dan Glickman
Senior Fellow, BPC
Former Secretary of Agriculture
Mike Leavitt
Chairman, Leavitt Partners
Former Governor of Utah
Former Health and Human Services Secretary
Donna E. Shalala
President, University of Miami
Former Health and Human Services Secretary
Ann M. Veneman
Former Executive Director, UNICEF
Former Secretary of Agriculture
Coverage
"Soon after he was elected in 1960, John F. Kennedy made physical fitness a defining principle of his presidency. In an article for Sports Illustrated titled 'The Soft American,' the president-elect wrote: 'It is my hope … that the communities will … make it possible for young boys and girls to participate actively in the physical life; and that men and women who have reached the age of maturity will concern themselves with maintaining their own participation in this phase of national vigor — national life.' More than a half century later, it is safe to say Kennedy would be appalled at the physical condition of our people."
- Glickman, Leavitt, Shalala and VenemanThe Hill, June 5, 2012
Related Posts
How can businesses, communities and individuals come together to turn the tide and restore America's intertwined physical and fiscal health?
BPC's Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative has released a report identifying the most promising opportunities to improve nutrition and physical activity for all Americans.
Click to view a larger version
Read the report, Lots to Lose: How America's Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future
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