Law as a Tool to Facilitate Healthier Lifestyles and Prevent Obesity

FACE CONSIDERABLE CHALlenges trying to prevent overweight and obesity in society, primarily because a person's own behavior is often the root cause of the disease.Individuals make personal choices about their diet, exercise, and lifestyle, so disease is often thought of as a matter of personal, not governmental, responsibility.Obesity, one of the 10 leading US health indicators, 1 is associated with increased risk of death from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers. 2 Yet the proportion of overweight and obese children and adults is alarmingly high and continues to increase.In 2005, 60.5% of adults in the United States were overweight (body mass index, 25-30), 23.9% were obese (body mass index, 31-40), and 3% were extremely obese (body mass index Ͼ40).African Americans have the highest obesity prevalence at 33.9%. 3The prevalence of adult obesity increased significantly in every state during the 1990s; therefore, no state will meet the targets for reduced rates of obesity set in Healthy People 2010. 4 Similarly, 16% of children and adolescents were overweight, a prevalence that has increased nearly 50% between 1999 and 2002. 5Obesity could shorten the average lifespan of an entire generation by 2 to 5 years, which, if true, would result in the first reversal in life expectancy since data were collected in 1900. 6besity primarily affects the individual, but it also has high socioeconomic costs.The aggregate consequences of individual choices are countless preventable disabilities and deaths, affecting families and the entire community.Obesityattributable medical expenditures reached $75 billion in the United States in 2003, with substantial additional indirect costs in lost productivity. 7Critics of state regulation argue that individuals should absorb the cost of their own illness, but taxpayers finance about half of all medical costs through Medicare and Medicaid, and employers cover most of the rest.The government arguably has a legitimate interest in controlling medical and social costs of individuals' unhealthy behaviors that are borne by society at large.Moreover, nonwhite and poor individuals experience substantial disproportionate burdens from obesity, with poor diet and sedentary lifestyles contributing to socioeconomic disparities.