Good News for Young Adults

Good News for Young Adults: Some of the Biggest Contributors to Future Health Problems are Preventable

Vol. 13 Issue 90

As science gets more and more sophisticated, it can seem like the list of illnesses being diagnosed gets longer and longer by the year. There’s just hundreds of ways to get sick! Fortunately, many of these illnesses can be prevented. Unfortunately, most of today’s young adults are not headed in the right direction!

Among the top killers are chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease including heart attacks and stroke, chronic lung diseases, cancer and diabetes. In 2004, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services stated that, “Three factors – tobacco use, poor nutrition, and lack of physical activity – are major contributors to the nation’s leading killers. America’s poor eating habits and lack of physical activity are literally killing us. Even worse, America’s children are more sedentary and overweight than ever before. The prevalence of overweight has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents, and there are indicators that suggest that diabetes rates among children are also increasing…The total cost of obesity is up to $117 billion per year.”

In little more than a decade, the numbers of young adults (ages 18 to 29) who are obese rose from 8 percent to 24 percent. The CDC National Center for Health Statistics, published a report in 2009 called, “Latest Report on the Nation’s Health Focuses on Young Adults,” which found that only around a third of young men and women engaged in regular physical activity, and a third of young men and one fifth of young women took part in strength training at least twice a week.

But unlike some factor such as genetics or mutating viruses, obesity and inactivity can be remedied at home, normally without major medical intervention or cost. Healthy lifestyles that include fresh fruits and vegetables and lean proteins, cooked at home, usually cost less than eating out and buying sugary snacks. Community exercise and sports activities are ordinarily very low in cost. By changing one’s lifestyle as a young adult, a person can count themselves as very smart to do everything they can to prevent chronic, dangerous diseases later in life!

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics “Latest Report on the Nation's Health Focuses on Young Adults,” February 18, 2009, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/09newsreleases/hus08.htm, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus08.pdf#listfigures, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/, Testimony by Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary Department of Health and Human Services on Preventing Chronic Disease throught Heathly Lifestyle before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, July 15, 2004, http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t040715.html