You need to update your flash plugin
Earlier this year, I teamed up with First Lady Michelle Obama to serve as a Vice Chair, along with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for her obesity campaign, The Partnership for a Healthier America. The partnership is an independent, nonpartisan organization that will serve to link and mobilize communities around the specific goals outlined in the First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, which seeks to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation. Obesity is generational – it wasn’t an issue when I was in school, but has become an epidemic today. This is the first generation in American history that is projected not to live as long as their parents, and this program that Michelle Obama is working on will help improve this disturbing trend. Behavior is such an important part of health, and I am pleased to be able to lend a voice to such a worthy and important cause. With the goal of eliminating childhood obesity within a generation, it will take a broad effort to engage every community in the nation. The toll taken by obesity is not just health, it negatively impacts self-esteem and dignity, taking a major psychological toll as well. The obesity problem is starting at an even earlier age, with researchers estimating that 21.2 percent of children from 2 to 5 are already obese or overweight, a number that has doubled over the past 30 years. The obesity rate for children ages 6 to 11 has also more than quadrupled – from 4.2 to 19.6 percent – as well as tripled for adolescents ages 12 to 19 – from 4.6 to 18.1 percent – over the past four decades. I encourage you to visit my website www.billfrist.com/obesity and submit your ideas and share your thoughts on how we can fight obesity together. I also encourage you to come back and visit the site often, as we will share some of the best ideas on this page and my blog, hopefully creating a dialogue that will produce meaningful and long-lasting solutions. Working together, we can and will fight this growing problem and eliminate it within a generation.
I also serve as a Partner at Cressey & Company LP, which is a private investment firm focused exclusively on investing in and building leading healthcare businesses. With a history spanning over 25 years, the Cressey & Company team is one of the most experienced and successful in middle-market private equity. The team manages a group of healthcare investments in a wide range of segments in excess of $1 billion of capital committed to building leading healthcare companies in partnership with outstanding executives and management teams. By identifying companies that are making a difference in the delivery of health care, Cressey is working to grow these companies that would benefit from an increase in scale. Cressey helps to improve the delivery of health care in the companies that it invests and in the process helps to improve health care delivery and access.
The threat of childhood obesity to the health of our children and the health of our nation has never been greater. For the first time in our history, the United States is raising a generation of children who may live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. First Lady Michelle Obama recognizes this threat, and has taken up the cause with her Let’s Move campaign, encouraging families across the country to commit to living healthier lives. Now, the Partnership for a Healthier America will support the First Lady’s cause by encouraging, tracking, and communicating commitments to healthier lifestyles from partner organizations — commitments that align with the Partnership for a Healthier America’s priorities.
Let’s Move! has an ambitious but important goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation. Let’s Move will give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country. Join First Lady Michelle Obama, community leaders, teachers, doctors, nurses, moms and dads in a nationwide campaign to tackle the challenge of childhood obesity.
