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| ASSEMBLY EDITION • ORLANDO, FLA |
Americans are experiencing a growing pandemic of obesity in which, for the first time in history, children today have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, overweight 20-year-olds have a 20-year reduced life expectancy, 64 percent of adults are overweight or obese, and at least 60 percent of all Americans are not getting enough exercise or eating a healthy diet.
Those grim statistics came from Rebecca Jaffe, M.D., of Wilmington, Del., a member of AAFP's Commission on Public Health, in a lecture yesterday on the Academy's Americans in Motion - AIM - program.
The mission of AIM is to improve the health of all Americans by implementing a multifaceted fitness program addressing physical activity, nutrition and emotional well-being in individuals, families and communities. "We emphasize lifelong exercise and eating to live, not living to eat," Jaffe said.
One of the goals of AIM is to encourage family physicians to become healthier and act as fitness role models. To that end, Jaffe's co-presenter, Brian Henry, M.D., a family physician with Due West Family Medicine in rural Due West, S.C., described a program he initiated to make his practice "the healthiest family medicine office in America."
Henry started bicycling to his office every day. Then one of his employees started walking to work and encouraged others to do the same. Soon, Henry's practice developed a voluntary fitness program that included group walking and other physical activities and goals for weight loss. The practice provided pedometers so employees could record how far they walked, an exercise room, feedback and rewards.
"We have an opportunity to change people's lives," Henry said. "We can make a difference. It's all about being healthy and feeling good."
His next goal: to make his community "the healthiest community in America."
FP Report is
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Copyright © 2003 by American Academy of Family Physicians.