At first blush, it seems like a surprising recommendation in this era of tight public budgets: How could anyone – even advocates at the North Carolina Alliance for Health – recommend eliminating the sale of revenue producing junk food from our public schools, much less recommend investing additional funds in our school lunch program? Simple: it's because the cost of doing nothing will cost billions of dollars more.
It is no longer news to anyone that we are facing an epidemic of childhood obesity in North Carolina. Over one-third (33.5%) of our children and youth age 10-17 are overweight or obese. As a result, North Carolina is ranked 14th in the nation in the number of most overweight kids. This is not just a sad fact about a few fat kids, but a public health tidal wave that could swamp our health care system, our state budget and severely damage the long term future of North Carolina.
Are you worried? You should be. Overweight adolescents are 70 percent more likely to grow up and enter North Carolina's workforce as overweight and obese adults. An obese adult will have annual medical costs 37.4% higher than their healthy weight counterparts, representing an additional $732 per obese person, per year. In addition, an overweight or obese adult will accrue $250,000 in lost productivity over the course of his or her career. The average overweight NC child will accrue $28,619 in direct medical expenses by the midpoint of his/her career and over $250,000 in direct health care costs by his/her retirement.
According to a 2008 study by the group Be Active North Carolina, the health care costs of physical inactivity, excess weight and type II diabetes among NC youth in 2006 exceeded $105 million annually. By 2015, these costs will rise to $204.96 million annually. Moreover, unhealthy body weight in adolescence has been associated with poorer academic performance and potentially to higher dropout rates. These are costs that we simply cannot afford. So what do we do now?
Given the growing severity of the childhood obesity epidemic, the proportion of calories consumed by children in the school setting, the link between healthy foods and body weight, and the link between body weight and academic performance, the logical conclusion is that ALL foods sold and offered in schools must be healthy and that appropriate state funding should be provided to make this effort successful.
The North Carolina Legislative Task Force on Childhood Obesity recently released a comprehensive set of 14 recommendations that acknowledge the situation we are facing as a state and proposed solutions that are an excellent balance of cost and potential positive impact– especially in the tight economic times we are facing.
One of the key recommendations on nutrition was just introduced as legislation in this "short session" of the General Assembly. This bill would require the State Board of Education to adopt updated nutrition standards for all foods sold and offered in schools-including a la carte items and vending machines. Food items would be required to meet current minimum national standards adopted by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation or the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine for elementary, middle and high schools. The proposal calls for revised standards to be phased in over time between 2011 and 2014.
Another key Task Force recommendation would provide an additional state subsidy of five cents per meal over the next couple of years in order to help phase in the healthier, but less lucrative menu items. Five cents is not enough to cover all this cost, but it is a good place to start. We should not be forced to balance our school cafeteria budgets by selling our kids high fat, low nutrition junk food.
Both of these recommendations, and the other 12 contained in the Task Force Report will, if adopted, have a meaningful, long-term impact on the health of our children and the future of our state. If just 3% of North Carolinians moved from overweight or obese to a healthy weight through good nutrition and physical activity, North Carolinians could save three billion dollars between 2007 and 2011.
The North Carolina Alliance for Health is committed to making the health of North Carolina's children a priority by tackling the childhood obesity epidemic. We want to make every choice a healthy choice for our children by making all foods sold or offered in our schools healthy. We hope sate leaders will join us in this effort to assure that North Carolina's school nutrition programs are not penny-wise and "pounds-foolish."
Betsy Vetter chairs the Executive Committee of the North Carolina Alliance for Health. Pam Seamans is the group's Executive Director.
