Posted on 08/06/2005 2:52:29 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton said his weight problem and brush with death are the catalysts behind his foundation's initiative of tackling childhood obesity.
Once famous for his love of fast food, Clinton told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta that bad health habits since childhood led to his September 2004 quadruple bypass surgery. That operation, he said, opened his eyes to a larger issue, and he turned his attention to the problem of overweight American children.
"The brush with death I had maybe had the biggest impact of all," Clinton recalled. "I realized that one more time I've been given another chance, and I wanted to make the most of it."
Clinton, who admits "I was the fat band boy," said he knows what unhealthy eating habits can do to a young body.
"Emory University's done a study saying that the obesity alone accounted for 25 percent of the increase in health costs of the last 15 years, so I thought it was a chance where I could save the most lives ... do the most good and also do something that I understood from my own experience," he said.
Clinton hopes to do that with a partnership between the William J. Clinton Foundation and American Heart Association. The initiative, launched in May, aims to "stop the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity" in the United States by 2010.
The goal is that by starting children on a path that includes a proper diet and exercise, they'll grow up to be healthy adults and reduce obesity-related health costs.
Other highlights of the initiative include working with the food and restaurant industry and the media and increasing physical activity and improving lunches in schools.
Clinton said lawmakers should take a greater involvement in the fight --
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Why does a fat, band boy go into politics? For the chicks, of course.
Tell me something I didn't already know, Burger Boy!
LOL!
I believe that Clinton was given a second chance to make things right with all of the people that he has wronged.
Is he lucky that God is a patient God!!!!!!!!!!
I saw this article earlier on CNN.com and resisted the temptation to post it...
i thought it might make some laugh in the morning
Damn I've been waiying for him to keel over ala Nelson Rockefeller
Its also mt own personal desire for myself. I mean, If I gotta go.....
"I was the fat band boy", Clinton bloviates now.
But in 1999, Clinton played a different tune, (pun intended)Back then at an event designed to make people forget his impeachment problems, Clinton said: "I want to say again, I don't think I would be President if it hadn't been for school music."
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1999/19991023.html
Transitional ethics, shifting oratory...thoroughly Clinton!
It certainly accomplished that :)
I thought this was about Hillary
He was abused by Roger.
As a group we travelled some 5,000 miles a year. It was a blast. Still had time for sports, too. The sad thing is I don't think they offer ay equivelant programs in school these days. We keep our kids busy through privately funded athletic organizations and such.
Plus 1 very festive caipira.
Brush with death? What a drama queen.
I had quadruple bypass surgery two months ago. There's no "brush with death" about it.
You haven't had a heart attack. No damage; no pain yet. You indulge the doctors in some tests. They operate. You hang in the hospital a couple of days and go home and rest a month. It's simple and straightforward.
I have more serious "brushes with death" crossing Eighth Avenue in front of yellow cabs every day.
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