With obesity on the rise in the United States and adding billions of dollars in medical expenses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday urged businesses to take action, presenting strategies companies can deploy to help battle the problem.
In “Navigating Obesity: A Road Map for Prevention,” a new report from the Chamber’s Business Civic Leadership Center, the group analyzed several obesity-prevention organizations to determine how major U.S. businesses and other stakeholders could address obesity. The report, authored by Business Civic Leadership Center research manager Jeff Lundy and consultant Lawrence Bowdish, has four strategies large companies can use on the issue of obesity:
- Make financial donations.
- Back and contribute to volunteering, marketing, advising, and other community activities.
- Engage and interact through innovative technology.
- Bring more healthy food choices to isolated and rural communities, especially through donations.
“The American business community has the will and talent to make a major difference in reducing obesity,” the report says. “The corporations that are already doing it well can be models for the business community. By working together, stakeholders can go beyond preventing obesity to eradicating it.”
The report was released Wednesday during “The Network Effect: How Business Drives Progress,” this year’s edition of the Chamber’s annual Corporate Responsibility Conference, which included a discussion on obesity prevention with officials from WellPoint Inc.’s WellPoint Foundation, Campbell Soup Co., and Share our Strength’s Cooking Matters, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that focuses on healthy eating.
Lance Chrisman, executive director of the WellPoint Foundation; Kim Fortunato, director of Campbell’s Healthy Communities; and Greg Silverman, director of Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters at the Store initiative, highlighted the work they do to fight obesity. The programs include WellPoint’s grants to support healthy living; Campbell’s grocery shopping education in its hometown of Camden, N.J.; and Share our Strength’s engagement with governors to broaden healthy eating in their states.
But Chrisman, Fortunato, and Silverman all said they need more help from the U.S. business community to lower obesity.
“Businesses know how to move further, faster,” Silverman said.
