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Ed Yeates ReportingWith one in every four kids now considered overweight the Health Department announced today it will move quickly to attack the epidemic not in just a few pilot schools, but every elementary and middle school in the state.
Young kids working out in an elementary school. It would have been unheard of a few years ago. But times have changed - dramatically!
Monroe Elementary is one of the original Gold Medal pilot schools the State Health Department used to kick off its project to change the shape of kids, literally.
David Sundwall, M.D., Executive Director, Utah Health Department: “In the last decade the incidence of obesity in young people has increased ten times.”
With those kinds of numbers, Dr. David Sundwall says this epidemic now has to be attacked head on. So this afternoon State Health joined with Utah's first lady and Intermountain Health Care, announcing a partnership that will expand the Gold Medal project into every elementary and middle school.
IHC is donating 1.5 million dollars to help make it possible.
Dr. Sundwall: “We’re talking about creating a culture where it’s cool to be healthy.”
We're talking about overall lifestyle changes. In fact, to become a Gold Medal School you need not only physical exercise, but salad bar as well.
If public health does not intervene, Dr. Sundwall says the outcome in another twenty years could prove disastrous -- diabetes, failure of joints in the knees and hips, cardiovascular problems, and more.
Dr. Sundwall: “Well, we can expect, as we have already witnessed, and explosion of the incidence of diabetes. You know, high blood pressure. We have children on high blood pressure medicines now that was heretofore unheard of.”
In schools that have implemented the program so far, kids this year alone have walked more than 200-thousand miles.
