Ingrid Jacques writes for USA Today about a disturbing trend that has emerged in recent months.
The reality is that more than 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, and the trend has been moving rapidly in the wrong direction, leading to a plethora of preventable health problems and costs associated with them.
It’s concerning, and the effort to combat obesity should be something we can all agree on.
Sadly, it’s not.
Since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, I’ve noticed a steady stream of rhetoric that attempts to make health and fitness partisan.
If you’re fit and enjoy working out (or even sport a tan), chances are there’s a progressive who will eye you with suspicion of being MAGA.
It’s an extreme example of the “if-Trump-is-for-it, we-must-be-adamantly-against-it” mentality that has infected the left.
To borrow a phrase from former Democratic vice presidential contender Tim Walz, it’s weird.
Trump brought physical fitness into the limelight on July 31 by signing an executive order reestablishing the Presidential Fitness Test for America’s public school students. The test had been around for decades until the 2012-13 school year, when President Barack Obama replaced it.
The order states: “We must address the threat to the vitality and longevity of our country that is posed by America’s declining health and physical fitness. For far too long, the physical and mental health of the American people has been neglected.”
The rise in obesity and the decline in health is especially disheartening when it comes to the country’s kids.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2024 report, about 20% of children are obese (2 in 5 adults are obese). That’s a sharp increase from when childhood obesity rates were 5% in the 1970s.
Not only is this a national health concern, it’s a national security one, as Trump acknowledges in his executive order.
