PORTLAND (AP) – Obesity will be one of the big issues on the Legislature’s agenda now that lawmakers have passed a tax relief bill.
Lawmakers will consider bills to require chain restaurants to list calories on menus; have schools give parents confidential reports on their child’s body fat; and stop teachers from using junk food to reward students. With obesity on the rise in Maine, supporters of the bills say it’s time to address poor nutrition and lack of physical activity.
Obesity has grown 20 percent over the last decade, with more than half of Maine adults overweight or obese and nearly 30 percent of high schoolers overweight or at risk of becoming so.
If current trends continue, obesity will overtake tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death, health experts say. Increasingly, obesity is contributing to conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, and costing Maine up to $1 billion a year.
“We need to start taking personal responsibility for our own health and teaching our children to take care of themselves,” said state Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, who co-chairs the state commission that developed the bills.
The measures face opposition from food processors and the state’s restaurant lobby, which fears such measures could hurt business.
“I’m sorry, but this is Big Brother at his finest,” said Richard Grotton, president and CEO of the Maine Restaurant Association. “It’s about forcing a change in behavior in the public.”
In 2003, the restaurant lobby led the fight against anti-obesity legislation from state Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor. Hailed as first-in-the-nation by public health advocates, all the bills were killed except one that created the Commission to Study Public Health that Craven co-chairs with state Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake.
Faircloth is optimistic that the bills have a better chance this session. The measures came from a commission of 31 people representing schools, the health care and food industries and state government, rather than just one person.
“I think each time you go around this process, our chances increase,” Faircloth said.
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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com
AP-ES-01-22-05 1340EST
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