Defeating Obesity

Health care providers, elected officials and business, education and community leaders gathered on campus May 26 to identify the best practices in promoting healthy living and to kick off a campaign aimed at reducing obesity in Orange County at the “Making Connections: Move More, Eat Healthy OC Summit.”

About 300 people attended the summit to hear leaders share their experiences and program successes, emphasizing the need to raise awareness in order to promote a healthier Orange County — where 21.2 percent of youths, ages 5-19, are obese.

CSUF alumna and Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michelle Martinez (B.A. criminal justice ’09), summit chair, shared her own story of weight loss. She said she was motivated to lose weight after her 47-year-old mother died of diabetes and other health-related issues that came about because she was overweight.

“My mother didn’t take her health seriously,” she said. “Diabetes will kill you. This is a very important public health issue.”

Martinez said it took her mother’s death to move her to take her own health seriously and lose 50 pounds in the last year.

Adam Hurtado, a contestant on season 10 of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” said he was obese most of his life, and like Martinez, his 51-year-old mother also died of obesity-related complications.

It took her death to motivate him to lose 182 pounds, he said. “I don’t want others to have to lose loved ones for us to realize that our health is of the utmost importance.”

Sen. Lou Correa (B.A. economics ’80), chair of the Orange County Nutrition and Physical Activity Collaborative Advisory Council (NuPAC), said fighting obesity is a challenge that takes different approaches.

He said high schools sell sodas in an effort to raise funds for school programs, kids don't walk or bike to school any more and “all of us have to think out of the box.”

“It’s not just about what you eat,” Correa added. “It’s about figuring out how to live healthier lives. How do you approach this major challenge?”

Summit speakers addressed the challenge by talking about myriad programs that attempt to meet the challenge.

Delivering the keynote address was James F. Sallis, professor of psychology at San Diego State University who Time Magazine called an “obesity warrior.” He spoke about building a healthy environment through enacting policies and best practices in the 21st century.

“This is serious business,” Sallis said. “The solution to this problem is more fun, more physical activity, more fun, eating good food. It’s not something that is a personal struggle for everybody. That’s the good news.… We all know the state’s in trouble, the federal government is in trouble and a lot of the local governments are in trouble financially. A lot of that trouble is due to increasing health care costs. It’s only going to get worse as obesity extends into diabetes, so we really need to work at a very high level.”

Sallis encouraged summit attendees to lobby their elected officials to make investments in good nutrition programs as a way to prevent obesity.

David Riley (B.A. business administration ’77), director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, said that although the county is one of the healthiest counties in the country, obesity is a growing problem, literally. He pointed to alarming statistics that count climbing numbers of those who are obese and overweight.

“We have an epidemic, a silent epidemic,” he said. “Over half of the adults in Orange County are either overweight or obese, 16 percent of our children are clinically obese and one-third of the children born in Orange County today are estimated to develop diabetes at some point in their lifetime.”

Diabetes, Riley said, is directly related to lack of exercise, being overweight and poor eating habits.

“Today is a call to action to fight obesity in Orange County,” he said. “The fight against obesity is the single most important fight to improve the health of Orange County. I encourage you to look for ways to change the trajectory of obesity.”

Caption: Donna Flemming, left, David Riley, and others participate in an OC Summit exercise May 26. Photo by Karen Tapia

June 1, 2011