Healthy school meals

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Obesity penalty isn't fair or effective

The recent announcement that North Carolina plans to impose a health insurance surcharge on overweight or obese state-government health plan members who do not meet certain weight standards raises a serious concern of weight discrimination and fails to address the many complex factors that lead to obesity and overweight.

Obesity, like many other expensive health conditions affecting employees, is a serious medical condition. Subjecting workers to financial penalties based on body weight is tantamount to charging employees for having a heart attack or needing chemotherapy -- an idea that is unreasonable and unethical. While it is certainly imperative to reduce obesity and have a healthy workforce, North Carolina's proposed solution to this problem is not the answer for several reasons.

First, imposing financial penalties through the State Employees Health Plan will likely be ineffective as an approach to help obese workers achieve significant weight loss that can be maintained over time. Scientific evidence

Schools walk thin line

Sitting at a table with her friends, Yolonda Hodges looked pointedly across the chaotic Southeast Raleigh High School cafeteria to the nearly empty lunch line on the left. There, she could have filled a tray with turkey or lasagna, a roll, corn, broccoli with cheese sauce, fresh fruit and milk -- all for $2.

Instead, she went through the line on the right for the cafeteria's more popular a la carte selections. She spent $1.50 on a paper tray of french fries.

"That food over there is nasty," said Yolonda, 15.

Weight of our state: 14th fattest

A national report Tuesday fingered North Carolina as one of 31 states where residents are getting rounder -- the same day state officials launched an ambitious but unfunded new strategy to turn the tide.

Nearly 26 percent of the state's adults weighed in as obese in 2005, up almost a full percentage point, according to new numbers reported Tuesday. An additional 37 percent of adults were overweight.

Put it all together, and the state is the nation's 14th fattest, according to "F as in Fat," an annual report on the thickening American waistline released by Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based health advocacy group.

Spreading obesity might undo savings from health overhaul

WASHINGTON — Spending to treat the health effects of obesity, $86 billion last year, will quadruple over the next decade, and almost half of U.S. adults will be obese by 2018, according to the annual America's Health Rankings study.

Doctors who participated in the study warned that if the trends continue and obesity rates keep rising, spending on the health effects of obesity — defined as being 20 percent or more above an individual's recommended weight — will grow to $344 billion by 2018.

Mississippi topped the list of states with the highest prevalence of obesity. Almost 38 percent of Mississippi's population is obese. The report estimates that more than half the state's population will be obese by 2018.

CAPITAL CULTURE: First lady tackling child obesity

By now, it is abundantly clear that Michelle Obama loves french fries.

The first lady talks about this "guilty pleasure" all the time, trying to ward off any notion that she is a nutrition nanny even as she cajoles Americans to eat better.

Now, her conversation with the public about the nation's health and fitness is about to get a lot more pointed.