Governor Huckabee's News Column: Healthy Arkansas Initiative

Governor Huckabee's
News Column
June 26, 2004

Subj: Healthy Arkansas Initiative

The Healthy Arkansas initiative we launched last month will blend state resources and the best practices of the private sector. We're working hard to identify Arkansas companies that have done innovative things to produce a healthier workforce. A healthier workforce means fewer sick days, greater productivity and lower health insurance costs.
I visited the J.B. Hunt Transport Services headquarters at Lowell last month to hear about the company's efforts to help its employees improve their health. Through counseling and lifestyle assessments, the company identified what it was spending on health insurance costs in areas that can be impacted by behavior. Those areas include weight, blood pressure, back problems and tobacco-related cancers. The company offers support systems for employees to change their lifestyles. Then, it tracks the decreased health insurance costs. J.B. Hunt already is saving millions of dollars in medical costs. At the same time, this giant trucking company is building a healthier workforce that misses fewer days of work. I hope employers of all sizes across Arkansas will look at the positive fiscal impact of changing unhealthy behaviors.
I also want us to consider offering fiscal incentives in the state employee health insurance plans. A number of organizations, including the Arkansas State Employees Association, have been asked for their input on how healthy habits should be rewarded. There are many things we can do in state government to complement what the private sector already is doing. For instance, I'll receive reports later this year from the state Department of Human Services on a proposed pilot project to change the behaviors of those who receive Medicaid benefits. Meanwhile, the state Department of Health will update me on changes in key health indicators.
Arkansas, of course, was the first state to measure the body mass index of all the children in the public schools. The results are, at best, sobering. Forty percent of our state's children are in one of the two risk categories as defined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-two percent of them are overweight. Another 18 percent are in the at-risk category. Only 2 percent are underweight, and 58 percent are normal. The obesity epidemic seems to peak in the middle grades with 43 percent of students in the fifth through the eighth grades either overweight or at risk of being overweight. While girls tend to lose weight in high school, boys stay heavy. Forty-three percent of the African-American and 47 percent of the Hispanic children in our state's public schools are either overweight or at risk of being overweight. More than half of the Hispanic boys fall into one of these two categories.
Parents will receive reports on their children, and school officials will receive profiles of the student body as a whole. We'll assess students each year and attempt to find ways to address this childhood obesity epidemic. Many adult diseases begin in childhood. An obese child is likely to become an obese adult with complications such as heart disease and stroke. In the words of Dr. Carden Johnston, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, "Prevention is better than treatment. And sometimes with obesity, prevention is the only treatment." Dr. Johnston laments the fact that many Americans and insurance companies consider obesity as merely a cosmetic disease. Nothing could be further from the truth. To quote Dr. Johnston again: "It's a health disease, not only physical but also mental and social. Pediatricians on a daily basis see these children. We were the first ones to identify the Type II diabetes complications as well as the bone and joint diseases, the propensity to heart disease, the sleep disorders, bad bones."
According to the CDC, 500,000 Americans will die of obesity-related diseases during the next year. In 2005, it will be the main cause of death in this country, surpassing tobacco-related diseases. To have healthier adults, we're must have healthier children. Wise investments now will save us millions of dollars in the future. We must make a sustained commitment to battling this problem. That's why you'll be hearing so much about the Healthy Arkansas initiative during the next two years. And when I leave office in January 2007, I hope the next governor will also make this effort a priority. This isn't a problem we're going to solve in the next two years, five years or 10 years. But if we don't start battling it now, Medicaid costs will continue to consume more and more of our budget, giving us less to spend on public education, crime prevention and other priorities.