News

Experts to Focus on Obesity at Alumni Day 2004

(Reprinted from EPH Today)

Obesity is the world’s biggest public health issue today. It is the main cause of heart disease and stroke, which kill more people now than AIDS, malaria and war, the major risk factor in type 2 diabetes, and heavily associated with many cancers, arthritis, breathing problems, and psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety. In 2000, after numerous reports about its consequences, the World Health Organization labeled obesity an epidemic.

In March of this year, a significant new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that while tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing 435,000 people in 2000 (or 18.1 percent of everyone that died), poor diet and physical inactivity leading to obesity is now number two, causing 400,000 deaths (16.6 percent of the total), and is quickly closing in on the number one spot. An estimated 129.6 million Americans, or 64 percent of the population, are currently overweight or obese. In another study, the Rand Corporation estimated that if current trends in this country continue, about one in five health care dollars spent on people ages 50-69 will be the result of obesity by 2020.

Given these alarming trends, the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health (AYAPH) program committee chose the topic The Obesity Epidemic: Evolution or Environment? as the focus of Alumni Day 2004, which will be held on June 4. Two well-known experts, Kelly Brownell, Ph.D., Professor and Chairperson, Department of Psychology, and Director, Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, and J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., M.P.P., Senior Vice President, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former Assistant U.S. Surgeon General and Deputy Under Secretary of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will be featured.

Professor Brownell will discuss obesity from a global perspective in a session that will examine the causes of the epidemic, note the dramatic way in which science is used (and misused) for political purposes, and propose public policy solutions. Dr. McGinnis will explore the role of prevention and health promotion in the epidemic, and the priorities for advocacy and the public health policy debate.

A panel of faculty and alumni experts will discuss various aspects of the epidemic, including obesity’s effect on children, its relationship to physical activity and aging, its relationship to cancer, and the public policy priorities that should be in place with respect to obesity and weight loss.

Alumni Day will also feature the annual Awards Luncheon, at which James M. Malloy, M.P.H. ’67, President of Health Management Consulting Associates, Inc., will receive the Alumni Distinguished Service Award, and Patti Harvey Rose, Ed.D., M.P.H. ’85, and James E. Rawlings, M.P.H. ’80, will be inducted into the Public Service Honor Roll. In addition, Dr. J. Michael McGinnis will receive the Award for Excellence in Health Promotion.