Reasonable minds can disagree whether genes or bad parenting is the primary cause of childhood obesity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/parents-more-than-parenting-may-be-to-blame-for-obesity/2011/11/28/gIQALOfk4N_blog.html.
But the following article shows that regardless of the cause, obesity is not a partisan issue; neither is it one in which companies must choose between profits and ethics. Parents need to know that they can feed their children healthy food without breaking the bank.
Obesity fight good for profits
By: Bill Frist and Cory Booker
November 28, 2011 09:25 PM EST
We are facing a childhood obesity epidemic so severe that for the first time, America’s children will live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. In the past three decades, the childhood obesity rate has tripled. One in three children is now either obese or overweight.
These trends continue past puberty. In 20 years, half of the U.S. adults are projected to be obese.
But many companies are committed to fighting this epidemic. Our health summit Tuesday focuses on a powerful yet simple idea: If the public and private sectors can come together to effect meaningful, voluntary change, we can end childhood obesity within a generation.
Some companies have already stepped forward. Because of their actions, millions more Americans now have easy access to healthful, affordable foods.
We’ve ensured childcare centers provide the healthiest environment to our children. Major consumer packaged goods companies have reformulated products — decreasing calories, sodium and fat. Restaurants have increased their healthful options — especially for kids. All these new commitments came in 2011 alone.
But their leadership will succeed only if the entire marketplace follows. These companies must show their competitors that by making the healthy choice the easy choice, a company can also make its bottom line healthier.
The good news is this idea is taking root. We have evidence that packaged-food and beverage companies selling a higher percentage of better-for-you products gain better reputations — and a stronger bottom line.
Better-for-you foods and beverages now account for slightly less than 40 percent of sales in grocery, drug and mass merchandisers, but they contributed more than 70 percent of sales growth in the past five years, according to a Hudson Institute study. And companies that expanded their better-for-you products more than traditional ones delivered 2½ times the operating-profit growth.
In addition, returns to shareholders were 1½ times higher for companies selling above-average levels of better-for-you products.
The hard evidence is in, and it’s clear that the private sector can be financially successful in its efforts to help all Americans be healthier.
But the private sector can do more. We say this not with a stick in our hands but with a carrot.
We know consumer demand is there. The private sector merely needs to seize the advantage — as the companies represented at the summit have done.
But we must make meaningful commitments, not empty press releases. In this age of increasing corporate social responsibility, when too many companies attempt to improve reputations by writing checks to causes they believe customers might like, our only counsel to companies looking to change is this: Make it meaningful.
The childhood obesity epidemic is too too dangerous for gimmicks.
Recent actions show that you can succeed by instituting meaningful change. But American consumers are not stupid. They know the difference between real commitments and hollow attempts at PR.
To our private-sector colleagues, remember: There is evidence that consumers will reward you for your efforts — but that does not mean your efforts will be easy.
The opportunity continues at today’s summit. Yet it will involve more than shining a spotlight on important private-sector initiatives to fight childhood obesity. Our real challenge is to carry the momentum these companies create into tomorrow, next month and next year.
Today is just the beginning. It has to be.
Bill Frist is a physician and the former Republican Senate majority leader. Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, N.J. They are honorary vice chairmen of Partnership for a Healthier America. The group is holding its Building a Healthier Future Summit on Tuesday.
© 2011 POLITICO LLC
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Wal-Mart Plans Ambitious Expansion Into Medical Care
This precisely what we should be concerned with as we move into a new era of healthcare. Walmart, best known for undercutting the competition's prices on everything from tires to toilet paper, is now going to offer healthcare services (the quality of which remains to be seen). The corporate giant is clearly trying to grab a piece of the healthcare pie, and preying on vulnerable Americans to do it. At the same time, they have announced that they will not be providing healthcare insurance to their own part-time employees. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Updated at 2:52 p.m. ET: Wal-Mart issued a statement Wednesday saying its request for partners to provide primary care services was "overwritten and incorrect." The firm is "not building a national, integrated low-cost primary health care platform," according to the statement by Dr. John Agwunobi, a senior vice president for health and wellness at the retailer.
[For more on the Wal-Mart clarification, see our follow-up post.]
Wal-Mart wants to be your doctor.
The nation's largest retailer is planning to offer medical services ranging from the management of diabetes to HIV infections, NPR and Kaiser Health News have learned.
In the same week in late October that Wal-Mart said it would stop offering health insurance benefits to new part-time employees, the retailer sent out a request for partners to help it "dramatically ... lower the cost of healthcare ... by becoming the largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation."
On Tuesday, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tara Raddohl confirmed the proposal. She declined to elaborate on specifics, calling it simply an effort to determine "strategic next steps."
The 14-page request, which you can read here, asks firms to spell out their expertise in a wide variety of areas, including managing and monitoring patients with chronic, costly health conditions. Partners are to be selected in January.
Analysts said Wal-Mart is likely positioning itself to boost store traffic, possibly by expanding the number of its in-store medical clinics and the services they offer.
The move would also capitalize on growing demand for primary care in 2014, when the federal health law fully kicks in and millions more Americans are expected to have government or private health insurance.
"We have a massive primary care problem that will be made worse by health reform," says Ian Morrison, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based health-care consultant. "Anyone who has a plausible idea on how to solve this should be allowed to play."
In-store medical clinics, such as those offered by Wal-Mart and other retailers, could also be players in another effort in the health law: collaborations between doctors and hospitals to streamline care and lower costs.
Such collaborations, known as accountable care organizations, might contract with in-store medical clinics, says Paul Howard, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He has studied retail clinics, some of which have recently expanded to offer services beyond simple tests and vaccinations, such as helping monitor patients with diabetes or high blood pressure.
Wal-Mart's request goes even further, asking possible partners to provide information on how they would oversee patients with complicated chronic conditions, including asthma, HIV, arthritis, depression and sleep apnea.
In health care, Wal-Mart has already flexed its super-size muscles when it comes to prescription drugs, says Ed Kaplan, a senior vice president at The Segal Company, an HR benefits firm. The company was the first to offer generic drugs at $4 for a month's supply,and its low-cost pharmacy is popular with employers and seniors. Kaplan says Wal-Mart could bring its massive purchasing power to medical supplies, diabetes test strips, just about anything.
Wal-Mart's efforts to partner with others on health care could help lower costs for some patients and increase access to primary care services. But the approach has detractors.
Family physicians have long been vocal critics of in-store clinics, arguing that patients need a regular source of care from someone who knows their medical history. Glen Stream, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, says Wal-Mart's proposal takes health care in the wrong direction by further fragmenting care.
Others aren't sure the company's approach can really work. "Maybe Wal-Mart can deliver a lot of this stuff more cheaply because it is an expert at doing this with other types of widgets, but health care is not a widget and managing individual human beings is not nearly as simple as selling commercial products to consumers," says Ann O'Malley, a physician and senior health researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.
And will it save money? Because primary care services are not the main driver of health care costs in this country, "I would be surprised if this were a model that could truly attack cost problems," says O'Malley.
Whatever it does for health costs, it may also be a way to boost foot traffic and sales in Wal-Mart stores, says Colin McGranahan, a retail analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "Their traffic has been declining for over two years and they've been losing market share," McGranahan says. "If you get someone in the door, you can also sell them milk and a shotgun."
Other retailers are ramping up their own medical offerings. CVS Caremark, Walgreens, Kroger, Target and others have recently reinvigorated efforts to open in-store medical clinics.
Until recently, Wal-Mart was the nation's leader in opening such clinics, but has dropped to third place with about 140 of them, well behind CVS Caremark's nearly 550 Minute Clinics and Walgreens' 355 Take Care clinics, according to data tracked by Tom Charland, CEO of Merchant Medicine, a Minnesota-based research and consulting firm. About 1,300 store-based clinics are open nationwide, he says.
They have different business models. Wal-Mart, which has more than 3,500 stores in the U.S., leases space to independent clinic vendors, for example, while CVS owns and staffs its Minute Clinics. While a few centers operated by retailers have doctors on site, most hire nurse practitioners or physician assistants to provide the care. In 2007, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced the firm would open 400 clinics by 2010.
But early efforts backed by venture capital money faltered and the firm failed to reach that number, says Charland. Wal-Mart then switched strategies and began leasing space to hospital systems, and the clinics began to grow again. Still, last month, the firm appeared to be struggling: Wal-Mart opened three in-store clinics, but closed 10, says Charland.
"This is an industry where people haven't figured out how to make money," he says. Hiring nurses isn't cheap — and business can be seasonal: more people come in during the cold winter months and business can slow to a crawl in the summer. "My guess is the whole purpose of (Wal-Mart's) request for information is to find someone to help them because they've not been able to pull it off."
This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes KQED, Oregon Public Broadcasting, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
Kristian Foden-Vencil of Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Chris Weaver, Sarah Barr, and Christian Torres of Kaiser Health News contributed to this story.
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Enlarge Eric Risberg/AP A trip to the local Wal-Mart, like this one in Oakland, Calif., could soon mean one less stop at the doctor's office.
Eric Risberg/AP
A trip to the local Wal-Mart, like this one in Oakland, Calif., could soon mean one less stop at the doctor's office.
[For more on the Wal-Mart clarification, see our follow-up post.]
Wal-Mart wants to be your doctor.
The nation's largest retailer is planning to offer medical services ranging from the management of diabetes to HIV infections, NPR and Kaiser Health News have learned.
In the same week in late October that Wal-Mart said it would stop offering health insurance benefits to new part-time employees, the retailer sent out a request for partners to help it "dramatically ... lower the cost of healthcare ... by becoming the largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation."
On Tuesday, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tara Raddohl confirmed the proposal. She declined to elaborate on specifics, calling it simply an effort to determine "strategic next steps."
The 14-page request, which you can read here, asks firms to spell out their expertise in a wide variety of areas, including managing and monitoring patients with chronic, costly health conditions. Partners are to be selected in January.
Analysts said Wal-Mart is likely positioning itself to boost store traffic, possibly by expanding the number of its in-store medical clinics and the services they offer.
The move would also capitalize on growing demand for primary care in 2014, when the federal health law fully kicks in and millions more Americans are expected to have government or private health insurance.
"We have a massive primary care problem that will be made worse by health reform," says Ian Morrison, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based health-care consultant. "Anyone who has a plausible idea on how to solve this should be allowed to play."
In-store medical clinics, such as those offered by Wal-Mart and other retailers, could also be players in another effort in the health law: collaborations between doctors and hospitals to streamline care and lower costs.
Such collaborations, known as accountable care organizations, might contract with in-store medical clinics, says Paul Howard, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He has studied retail clinics, some of which have recently expanded to offer services beyond simple tests and vaccinations, such as helping monitor patients with diabetes or high blood pressure.
Wal-Mart's request goes even further, asking possible partners to provide information on how they would oversee patients with complicated chronic conditions, including asthma, HIV, arthritis, depression and sleep apnea.
In health care, Wal-Mart has already flexed its super-size muscles when it comes to prescription drugs, says Ed Kaplan, a senior vice president at The Segal Company, an HR benefits firm. The company was the first to offer generic drugs at $4 for a month's supply,and its low-cost pharmacy is popular with employers and seniors. Kaplan says Wal-Mart could bring its massive purchasing power to medical supplies, diabetes test strips, just about anything.
Wal-Mart's efforts to partner with others on health care could help lower costs for some patients and increase access to primary care services. But the approach has detractors.
Family physicians have long been vocal critics of in-store clinics, arguing that patients need a regular source of care from someone who knows their medical history. Glen Stream, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, says Wal-Mart's proposal takes health care in the wrong direction by further fragmenting care.
Others aren't sure the company's approach can really work. "Maybe Wal-Mart can deliver a lot of this stuff more cheaply because it is an expert at doing this with other types of widgets, but health care is not a widget and managing individual human beings is not nearly as simple as selling commercial products to consumers," says Ann O'Malley, a physician and senior health researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.
And will it save money? Because primary care services are not the main driver of health care costs in this country, "I would be surprised if this were a model that could truly attack cost problems," says O'Malley.
Whatever it does for health costs, it may also be a way to boost foot traffic and sales in Wal-Mart stores, says Colin McGranahan, a retail analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. "Their traffic has been declining for over two years and they've been losing market share," McGranahan says. "If you get someone in the door, you can also sell them milk and a shotgun."
Other retailers are ramping up their own medical offerings. CVS Caremark, Walgreens, Kroger, Target and others have recently reinvigorated efforts to open in-store medical clinics.
Until recently, Wal-Mart was the nation's leader in opening such clinics, but has dropped to third place with about 140 of them, well behind CVS Caremark's nearly 550 Minute Clinics and Walgreens' 355 Take Care clinics, according to data tracked by Tom Charland, CEO of Merchant Medicine, a Minnesota-based research and consulting firm. About 1,300 store-based clinics are open nationwide, he says.
They have different business models. Wal-Mart, which has more than 3,500 stores in the U.S., leases space to independent clinic vendors, for example, while CVS owns and staffs its Minute Clinics. While a few centers operated by retailers have doctors on site, most hire nurse practitioners or physician assistants to provide the care. In 2007, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced the firm would open 400 clinics by 2010.
But early efforts backed by venture capital money faltered and the firm failed to reach that number, says Charland. Wal-Mart then switched strategies and began leasing space to hospital systems, and the clinics began to grow again. Still, last month, the firm appeared to be struggling: Wal-Mart opened three in-store clinics, but closed 10, says Charland.
"This is an industry where people haven't figured out how to make money," he says. Hiring nurses isn't cheap — and business can be seasonal: more people come in during the cold winter months and business can slow to a crawl in the summer. "My guess is the whole purpose of (Wal-Mart's) request for information is to find someone to help them because they've not been able to pull it off."
This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes KQED, Oregon Public Broadcasting, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
Kristian Foden-Vencil of Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Chris Weaver, Sarah Barr, and Christian Torres of Kaiser Health News contributed to this story.
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Twelve Coalitions Receive RWJF Roadmaps to Health Community Grants
State and Local Efforts Will Work to Create Systems Changes in Areas That Impact Health, Including Education, Income and Employment, Community Safety and Social Connectedness
Coalitions in 12 states and localities across the United States have been awarded Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Roadmaps to Health Community Grants of up to $200,000 to improve the health of people living in those communities. The grants, which will support two-year state and local efforts among policy-makers, business, education, health care, public health and community organizations, will be managed by Community Catalyst and are part of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, a collaboration of RWJF and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI).
The grantees, selected from more than 300 initial applicants, will build on the RWJF/UWPHI County Health Rankings model, which highlights the critical role that factors such as education, jobs and our environment play in influencing how healthy people are and how long they live.
In addition to the Community Grants, the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program will include other efforts to mobilize local communities and national partners and leaders, including grants to national organizations to activate local leaders and affiliates to improve health; a prize program to recognize communities taking action whose promising efforts will lead to better health; and, tools and resources to help groups working to improve the health of their communities. Taken together, the Rankings and Roadmaps to Health are addressing our nation’s health crisis through the creation of healthier places to live, learn, work and play.
Read the full press release.
Learn more about each of the 12 grant recipients.
Coalitions in 12 states and localities across the United States have been awarded Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Roadmaps to Health Community Grants of up to $200,000 to improve the health of people living in those communities. The grants, which will support two-year state and local efforts among policy-makers, business, education, health care, public health and community organizations, will be managed by Community Catalyst and are part of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, a collaboration of RWJF and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI).
The grantees, selected from more than 300 initial applicants, will build on the RWJF/UWPHI County Health Rankings model, which highlights the critical role that factors such as education, jobs and our environment play in influencing how healthy people are and how long they live.
In addition to the Community Grants, the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program will include other efforts to mobilize local communities and national partners and leaders, including grants to national organizations to activate local leaders and affiliates to improve health; a prize program to recognize communities taking action whose promising efforts will lead to better health; and, tools and resources to help groups working to improve the health of their communities. Taken together, the Rankings and Roadmaps to Health are addressing our nation’s health crisis through the creation of healthier places to live, learn, work and play.
Read the full press release.
Learn more about each of the 12 grant recipients.
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