After we reported it on Friday, a recent article by Gina Kolata in The New York Times also addressed how public health officials are debating which is more important: reducing teenage smoking rates or curbing childhood obesity?
According to Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the University of Michigan s school of public health, the death toll from smoking is higher, which may be due to the inability to accurately calculate lifetime health risks to which overweight children are predisposed.
The article implies that we have to make a choice for the allocation of resources, but why can t we put them in both places? asks Dr. Whelan.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross agrees, and points out that this is not a zero-sum game. We need to deal with both obesity and smoking. It s important to remember that the original estimates of obesity-related deaths were grossly exaggerated and based upon statistics that, when investigated, were flawed or nonexistent.
Upon the release of a new CDC report indicating that the teen smoking rate failed to reach the goal of 16 percent by 2010, some wonder whether childhood obesity has garnered too much attention. We need to deal with obesity which is a serious problem whether it s growing or stabilizing as well as teen smoking, because 90 percent or more of smokers start during their teenage years, says Dr. Ross.