Doctor waging war on obesity

• Fast-food restaurants have large posters declaring exactly how much fat and how many calories lurk in that jumbo-sized cheeseburger.

• School vending machines stock fruits and juices and milk, not candy and soda.

• Physical education classes are a formal part of all schools' curriculum again. And entire communities gather in the town square to eat healthful, nutritious foods each year during the "Great American Fat Out."

It will be like the Great American Smoke Out, where smokers eschew cigarettes for a day, in recognition of the fact that smoking is unhealthy. After all, in the battle to point out the ills caused by obesity, we're about where anti-tobacco advocates were in 1964 — at the beginning of a long road, with public health at stake, said Williams, executive director of the Utah Department of Health. He spoke at the Intermountain Health Care Healthy Communities Conference Wednesday.

Most of the 1900s belonged to the smokers. In both World War I and II, troops were provided with free cigarettes as a perk because smoking was so prevalent, Williams said. Tobacco ads were everywhere, Phillip Morris sponsored the most popular TV show of the 1950s, "I Love Lucy," and ads for tobacco featured pseudo health claims like "Just what the doctor ordered."

In 1954, a study looked at a link between smoking doctors and their deaths, while a year later CBS aired the first TV show about a possible link between cigarettes and cancer.

In 1964, despite efforts here and there to impact America's smoking habit — more than half of men and more than one-third of women smoked — it looked like changing behavior and health outlooks might be impossible.

That's precisely where public health efforts are in the process of getting the message that obesity kills. And look how much has changed in that old battle with tobacco, Williams said.

The effort to create a public will to address the dangers of obesity are just beginning to show promise, Williams said. This year, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District banned soft drinks from all 677 schools, he said. And a few years ago, Jared Fogle lost 245 pounds eating low-fat Subway sandwiches, something Williams characterized as important because it not only shows that fast-food outlets can create low-fat meals, but that they can make money marketing low-fat, more healthful products.