Remarks as Delivered at the 2007 National Prevention and Health Promotion Summit

Good morning. Thanks, Penny, for that warm introduction. And thank you, Mrs. Bush, for your enthusiastic support of the Surgeon General's childhood obesity initiative.

On behalf of Secretary Leavitt, I would like to welcome everyone to the 2007 National Prevention and Health Promotion Summit. Prevention is one of the Secretary's top priorities and he was looking forward to being here. His responsibilities as Chairman of the Cabinet Task Force on Import Safety pulled him away at the last minute.

But I appreciate the chance to you speak to you, because I am also committed to spreading the word around America on the importance of prevention for good health. As my mother used to tell me when I was little, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything."

We all do what our mothers tell us, don't we? Heeding my mother's words, I recently visited my doctor for one of my regular check-ups. He told me that I'm in pretty good shape for a man of 60. Unfortunately, I'm only 40.

I actually just heard some exciting news that could really benefit the prevention community. Apparently, a team of scientists at the National Institutes of Health just discovered an exciting new drug that will confer immortality. Unfortunately, it will take the Food and Drug Administration forever to rule on its efficacy.

Seriously, though, each one of us here today has the opportunity to be among the healthiest people that have ever lived - despite the bacon we may have for breakfast or the fast food we may eat for dinner.

It's because we are living at an extraordinary time in medical science. We have access to better medicine, better science, and more preventive therapies than anyone at anytime in history. We don't have to worry about diseases that used to be devastatingly common, like typhoid or polio. Infections can be cured. Injuries can be mended.

Eventually, science is likely to advance to the point where treatment can be tailored to an individual's basic genetic makeup. HHS is strongly supporting those developments. We're working across the Department and together with the private sector to make medicine more predictive, preemptive, and preventive.

Medical advances can help, but good health isn't always up to others. Health care starts with self care. You and I have a personal responsibility to care for our own health, and that requires work and commitment.

Far too many people aren['t willing to put in that work. As a result, largely preventable chronic diseases have replaced infectious diseases as major killers. Chronic diseases cause 7 out of every 10 deaths each year. They also consume more than a trillion dollars every year. That's three out of every four dollars we spend on health care. Smoking, just one cause of so many chronic diseases, costs our economy hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of years of potential life every year.

One of the leading causes of chronic disease is obesity. Back in 1960, about 45 percent of American adults were overweight or obese. Obesity increases our risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, and some types of cancer. Now, almost two-thirds of all American adults are overweight or obese.

But - as I've said - these diseases are all largely preventable. While the trends are troubling, we can stop them. We can even reverse them. For example, CDC recently announced that after decades of rising, adult levels of obesity have leveled off.

We can continue to make advances in public health by working together.

Think about how public health advocates - both government and private - came together to fight HIV/AIDS. To cite just a few:

• The National Institutes of Health has been conducting basic research into the virus and the disease.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been studying how it spreads across populations.
• The Food and Drug Administration has been approving therapies as safe and effective.
• The Administration for Children and Families has been supporting HIV-positive infants and children.
• The Indian Health Services has been providing treatment to members of tribes.
• And most recently, under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, our Office of Global Health Affairs has been leading a multibillion dollar effort to fight the disease and provide comfort to those suffering in the hardest hit countries in the world.

And together, we have changed HIV/AIDS for many from a death sentence to a treatable condition.

We are adopting the same approach to preventing chronic diseases.

• NIH is conducting basic research on the dynamics of caloric intake and exercise.
• CDC is working to prevent and control chronic diseases like they do deadly microbes.
• FDA is approving life saving, life extending medicines that help people fight chronic conditions.
• CMS is committing more resources to preventive medicine, including a new Welcome to Medicare screening under the Part D drug benefit.
• And through occasions like this year's prevention summit, we are looking for new opportunities for collaboration in the fight against chronic diseases.

Now, good health is not something that government can mandate. People must choose to adopt healthy behaviors on their own. What government can do is encourage them to make the right choices and give them the knowledge and tools to do so.

President Bush appreciates the need for disease prevention and health promotion. He's always set a strong personal example for the nation by being fit himself. So does Secretary Leavitt, in fact. I actually run into him every now and then at the gym.

But President Bush and Secretary Leavitt do more than set a good example. They also set good policy.

Five years ago, the President presented a vision of a HealthierUS and urged Americans to be physically active, eat a nutritious diet, get recommended preventive screens and reduce risky behaviors. Our whole Department responded to the President's call, and we've been working to invest in research and programs to promote health and prevent disease.

Some of them focus on individuals and families. For example, we recently ran a humorous ad campaign in partnership with the cartoon character Shrek to encourage kids to get up and move around.

Now, you might wonder why we picked a hefty fellow like Shrek as our spokesman. Well, we wanted someone overweight kids could relate to. The Kate Mosses and the Twiggys of the world - take your pick, depending on your generation - aren't the ones who typically struggle against Type 2 diabetes or obesity-related cancers. Anyhow, as Penny assures me, Shrek has the perfect B.M.I. for an ogre.

We also work with the Department of Agriculture to educate Americans on how much of what foods they should eat to stay healthy. The Dietary Guidelines reflect the most accurate science, and are one of our most important tools for empowering Americans to better their health. We are in the process of developing similar science-based guidelines for physical activity.

With other efforts, we are joining forces with states to develop and implement science-based nutrition and physical activity interventions. We distribute millions of dollars of Steps to a HealthierUS grants to states.

Some of our work is programmatic. The new Medicare drug benefit gives beneficiaries access to a variety of new preventive services like heart and diabetes screenings, smoking cessation treatments, and the Welcome to Medicare physical I mentioned earlier. Secretary Leavitt has spent a great deal of time traveling around the country, meeting with seniors, and talking with them about Medicare's preventive benefits.

We also conduct community outreach and awareness activities like this annual prevention summit. This includes our Innovation in Prevention Awards - which we will announce later. These awards honor outstanding leaders that have looked closely at how their practices affect people's health and developed creative ways to improve them. These champions of change illustrate how various sectors of society - health care delivery systems, workplaces, schools, faith-based organizations, and governmental and non-profit organizations - can help Americans lead healthier lives.

I would like to congratulate all of them for their good work.

And today I'm delighted to announce that we're launching our latest effort to promote prevention around America. Our new Acting Surgeon General, Admiral Steven Galson, is heading an initiative to help prevent overweight and obesity in children. We're fortunate to have a public health expert like Admiral Galson engaged against childhood obesity, because problem has never been more significant.

In the past 20 years, overweight and obesity among children and adolescents has increased from 11 percent to 16 percent. Ten million children are overweight.

As a result, kids are developing diseases like high blood pressure, asthma, sleep apnea, and Type 2 diabetes. Until recently, we really didn't see many children with Type 2 diabetes. We used to call it adult diabetes. Children who are overweight today are at greater risk of developing heart disease and other chronic conditions later in life. And they will see the onset of these diseases at an earlier age than their parent's generation.

This is not good news for our next generation of Americans. If the trend toward childhood overweight and obesity continues, one in three Americans born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes during his or her lifetime.

Though the answer to childhood overweight and obesity is simple - eat less, eat right, and move more - many people find it challenging. There are so many bad habits and temptations to overcome.

A hundred years ago, about the only thing a child could do sitting still was read or draw or watch the grass grow. Then came radio. Then television. Then video games. Now we have the Internet.

Over the same time, we've seen a dramatic change in American eating habits. When you and I were kids, we ate most of our meals at home. Our meals had lots of vegetables, and our parents made sure we ate them - or at least they tried to.

Nowadays, kids eat out more, on their own and with their parents. They eat a lot of fast food and junk food. And they wash it all down with soft drinks. It's no wonder more and more of our children are obese.

Admiral Galson's new Childhood Overweight and Obesity Prevention Initiative consists of six programs that give people the right knowledge, the right tools, and the right encouragement to stop childhood overweight and obesity:

• The National Institutes of Health's We Can! program - which assists communities in their efforts to encourage their children to maintain a healthy weight.
• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's School Health Programs to Prevent Obesity and Overweight - which helps schools reshape social and physical environments to promote healthy lifestyles.
• The Food and Drug Administration's Using Nutrition Facts Labels to Make Healthy Food Choices - which uses entertaining, targeted advertising to help children and adults understand food labels.
• The Indian Health Service's Together Raising Awareness for Indian Life - which helps tribal children and youth make healthy lifestyle choices.
• The President's Council for Physical Fitness and Sports' National President's Challenge - which calls all Americans to commit to physical activity at least five days a week.
• And as Mrs. Bush just announced, the Administration for Children and Families is implementing its new Head Start Playground Initiative - a grant program to help Head Start programs develop community playgrounds. I live in the suburbs now, where playgrounds are everywhere. But I used to live in New York City. As anyone else here who's lived in an urban environment like New York knows, playgrounds are very rare in dense cities. Through this new program, we're enabling Head Start to establish community playgrounds where children need them the most.

The common theme across the Surgeon General's Childhood Overweight and Obesity Prevention Initiative is how we're engaging those most able to influence children's eating and activity habits. We're reaching out to parents, caregivers, schools, and community leaders. We're offering them the help they need to encourage their families, friends, and communities to make smart choices.

Like all chronic diseases, childhood overweight and obesity can have deadly consequences. Preventing them is a challenge that we'll face for years to come. But prevention just makes sense. It leads to a better quality of life. It saves money at a time when health care costs just keep rising.

Thanks to the commitment, creativity, and enthusiasm of people like Admiral Galson, Mrs. Bush, and all of you here - people who focus on one disease, one community, one group of employees, or one preventive cause at a time - we are making a difference.

If we keep working to make that difference, decades from now - when our children are happy and healthy - our work today will be seen as one of the great public health success stories. Together we can get it done. Let's make it happen.