Lawmakers indulge in vigorous debate, tasty metalloid

Remember the Healthy State House Challenge? How back in March, when the legislative session still was fairly new and intentions still fairly good, 160 lawmakers and staff gathered in the Capitol rotunda and – amid considerable hoopla – weighed in, divided into teams of Republicans, Democrats and independents, and pledged to devote the rest of the session to setting a good example for a state in dire need of sensible diet and modest exercise? Doesn’t ring a bell?

I’d quite forgotten about it, too, until I happened to be in the State House recently and, passing through the newly and beautifully remodeled Cross Cafe, saw many of these same lawmakers and staff lustily digging into enormous steaming plates of the metalloid and mashed daily special, of which each serving could have fed an Ethiopian village for a month.

On a very, very long table was an array of fat-filled doughnut and doughnut-like products the Smithsonian should know about in case it ever puts on an exhibit tracing the history of junk food. Everywhere, sugary soda was being guzzled with a gusto sailors on shore leave would envy. Nowhere did I see fruit and veggies getting munched; looking out the windows, no vigorous noontime walks did I see.

(Incidentally, I spoke to Jennifer Desjardins, the cheerful assistant manager of the new cafe who confirmed what I’d pretty much suspected – you can lead lawmakers to fruit, veggies and low-fat entrees, but you can’t make them eat it. She said healthy choices are being added to the menu and are slowly but, she hoped, surely gaining acceptance. I told her that, before the extensive remodeling, the old State House cafeteria was called, with good reason, the Bay of Pigs and that the Cross Cafe was a major step up the evolutionary ladder in both nutrition and table manners. That seemed to buoy her spirits considerably.)

So, you ask, whither the Healthy State House Challenge? What was going to be a high-profile session-long contest in behavior modification got turned into a quiet two-week tabulation of health habits. The Indies, by the way, won. Dems were second and Republicans brought up the, so to speak, rear.

This happened for two reasons. First, the two key leaders of this well-meaning endeavor got sick and without their leadership the 158 others whose job it is to lead the state apparently couldn’t figure out on their own how to eat sensibly and take an occasional walk. Second, according to several quasi-participants, things get awfully busy in a legislative session and when time is of the essence you can inhale a whoopie pie faster than you can munch an apple.

It’s unfortunate that the Challenge fizzled, but news that it did is timely. Lawmakers have spent much of the last two weeks in vigorous debate on Rep. Paul Volenik’s proposal to make Maine the first state in the nation to adopt a single-payer health insurance plan and it has left those lawmakers paying close attention wiser, if not fitter.

Despite some awfully silly comments about socialism, kamikaze attacks and jumping off cliffs, the debate has exposed these important truths: Maine residents – especially Maine businesses – already pay an astonishing and ruinous $6.8 billion a year in health insurance premiums; it is the fastest growing and most uncontrollable cost to business; in the future, business location decisions will not be based upon which states have the lowest taxes or the weakest environmental laws but upon which states have the healthiest people.

In that regard, Maine does not show well. According the Centers for Disease Control, the last decade, though seemingly devoted to low-fat snacks and ab crunching, has left the United States in worse shape than ever. Since 1991, obesity (roughly defined as being more than 30 pounds overweight) has increased from 12 percent of the American population to nearly 20 percent. There has been no measurable change in physical activity, with only 25 percent of adults exercising enough and 30 percent not at all. Worse, what used to be adult-onset diseases – such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease – now are showing up in kids at epidemic levels.

Maine tracks the national obesity numbers and the growth rate almost precisely. Normally, being at the national average wouldn’t be so bad, but add to that Maine’s much higher than average incidence of smoking and it’s bad. Just four diseases – cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes – account for three-fourths of Maine deaths and one-third of its disabilities, and most cases of those diseases are attributable to bad lifestyle choice.

In other words, we currently expect employers to provide health insurance and then go out of our way to make it as expensive as possible. Makes you wonder – when American businesses move jobs overseas to take advantage of lower labor costs, we always assume it’s to save a few bucks on wages. Maybe they’d just rather not be responsible for workers intent on developing lingering and expensive illnesses.

Back to the Healthy State House Challenge. Nobody’s more disappointed in it not panning out than the legislator who, along with Bureau of Health Director Dr. Dora Ann Mills, originated of the idea and who was the first to step on the scales in public back in March, Rep. Glenys Lovett. The Scarborough Republican is recuperating at home from a heart scare – an irregularity – she readily admits is her own darned fault.

“I’m 65 pounds overweight,” she told me over the phone. “I am going to take it off. Like most people, I didn’t pay enough attention to what I ate, I didn’t keep active and it caught up with me. It’s hard when you’re rushing around and you’ve only got 15 minutes for lunch but you can’t let that be an excuse for not making the right choices. We had a great program and we’re going to bring it back next session – legislators need to set an example on his. There’s no question that with all the problems caused by overweight and smoking we’re killing ourselves and ruining our economy.”

Rep. Lovett made the decision to go public with her get-healthy campaign before her heart condition showed up and the irony of first having the epiphany and then getting the wake-up call does not escape her. “It’s true, usually you get the scare and then decide to change but I did it backward. Health usually isn’t a concern until it affects you personally – I just don’t think every person in Maine needs to have a health problem before we start to make better choices.”

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.