Released September 15, 2008
AUBURN UNIVERSITY, Ala. -- Evelyn F. Crayton, a member of the American Dietetics Association’s Board of Directors and assistant director of family and community programs with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, spoke on nutrition, physical activity and health policy Sept. 8 at a public forum at the University of Mississippi. Crayton and three other expert panelists participated in the forum, which was a lead-up to the Sept. 28 presidential debate on the university's campus.
“Whoever wins the 2008 presidential election must make health care a priority and work with Congress to enact meaningful reform," said Crayton, a registered dietitian. According to Crayton, prevention is generally overlooked in American health care systems.
"As a registered dietitian, I can tell you many of the most costly disabling conditions can be prevented through nutrition strategies. With proper nutritional support, many complications can be averted or delayed. Federal attention to public nutrition and investment in nutrition care, education and research is essential," she said.
A century ago, the leading causes of death were bacterial and viral diseases. Today statistics show nutrition and diet are associated with most of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, cancer and stroke.
"From the beginning of time, the primary issue has been the adequacy of the diet. Now, that is no longer true," Crayton said. "Today overweight and obesity represent the largest manifestation of malnutrition in the United States, both coexisting with and at times overshadowing hunger as the most significant nutrition problem facing the nation."
Speaking on behalf of the American Dietetic Association, Crayton said obesity and overweight call for health strategies to prevent them, rather than approaches to treat them. An appropriate focal point should be children, to prevent childhood obesity. If we don't act to stop current trends, the current generation of children will have shorter life expectancy than their parents, according to Crayton.
"Although parents want to help their children grow up to be healthy, they often don't know how to on their own. Only the luckiest of families are able to see a registered dietitian for nutrition assessment and intervention, where this important service is covered by the family's insurance plan," she said.
Coverage for proven cost-effective nutrition counseling under Medicare also is limited -- under a policy that pays for screening for prediabetes, but does not cover the cost of a patient attempting to avert diabetes. "This makes no sense," Crayton said.
Study after study shows that adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical activity to achieve a 5 to 10 percent weight loss can prevent the onset of diabetes.
Crayton said ADA wants prevention to play a more balanced role in our health care system. “The private sector needs to ensure future care is patient centered. Financing systems in health care must be dynamic enough to capture savings from disease prevention and management of chronic conditions. We have to equip the public -- before they are patients -- with information, motivation and skills they can use to be healthy."
The ADA is focused on federal nutrition education and nutrition research in addition to health policy laws, Crayton said, adding that nutrition information on its own does not translate into knowledge or knowledge necessarily into appropriate action. "Consumers have countless food options and they revere the freedom to make their own choices," she said.
"Policies based on choice imply our citizens have information, knowledge and skills to make healthy choices," Crayton said, adding that registered dietitians are the nutrition experts who provide intensive nutrition assessment, personalized intervention and ongoing counseling.
The ADA is the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. ADA is committed to improving the nation's health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. Visit the ADA at http://www.eatright.org.
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http://www.aces.edu/department/extcomm/npa/newsline/archives/003754.php
