A new report claims half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes in another ten years. It’s called a ticking time bomb for public health, and Doctor Patrick Remington, Associate Dean for Public Health at the University of Wisconsin said that’s an apt metaphor. “The best way to predict the future is to look to the past, and the trends over the last two decades have not been good,” said Remington. “If those trends continue, we will have a disaster in a decade or two.” Remington said we are learning more about the negative health consequences attached to obesity, and the response is following much the same arc as the response to the dangers of smoking. “I think we’re just at the beginning of the discussion about the problems related to obesity, like diabetes, but also what we need to do about it.”
Recommendations in the report from the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization include cutting fatty junk food out of school lunch programs to help kids combat obesity which is the root cause of diabetes. And Remington said kids and adults need to get up and move. “Public health is insuring conditions in which people can be healthy,” he said. “The society we’ve designed today is great for using cars and for using technology, but it’s not so good for eating a good diet and for getting exercise.” Remington said we’re far more sedentary then we were even twenty years ago, a fact reflected in our alarming increases in obesity and diabetes. “The best prescription that a doctor can give for people who are pre-diabetic or gaining weight is to go out and exercise every day,” he said. “And it’s not jogging or going to a health club so much as just walking about. Activities of daily living can burn calories and help people control their weight.”