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medpundit |
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Monday, December 02, 2002Obesity is a disease that demands the combined efforts of professionals and policy makers from a wide variety of disciplines. Decisions about children's lives, welfare, safety, schooling and opportunities for activities and sports, as well as the types of foods available to them, can be made and acted on only with a communitywide effort - an Albany pediatrician What's needed is not a search for "a new miracle pill," but a comprehensive education and behavior-modification effort. That is a job not for medical scientists, but for therapists, teachers, celebrities, journalists, family doctors, parents and government. - a Brooklyn Swede A legislative remedy is sorely needed. - a New York obesity surgeon who wants mandated insurance coverage for the procedure Though surgery is drastic, the less drastic solution to obesity isn't a "miracle pill." It should be educating the public, especially parents-to-be, about the proper daily consumption of the basic food groups and the importance of particular vitamins in one's diet. Such a program should also offer resources to the poor and homeless to purchase foods of good nutritional value. - a New Jersey reader Then, finally, a letter that puts the blame squarely where it belongs: Why not add failure to stop smoking, failure to prevent exposure to the sun, failure to wear seat belts, failure to wear helmets and so on to severe obesity as examples of what constitute a "sad commentary on the failure of medical science"? Maybe the failure lies elsewhere. - a doctor from White Plains. Have we really gotten to the place where four out of five people think the nanny state is the proper role of government? Or is it just that four out of five New York Times readers think that way? posted by Sydney on 12/02/2002 07:27:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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