Health is a top concern for African-Americans

August 8, 2010 The Kansas City Star

It may take an Oprah-like TV personality to get people to turn away from bad eating and other habits to set the U.S. population on a healthier course.

The data for obesity, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and heart disease don't look good - particularly for African-Americans. The death rate for them is among the highest, with no sign of changes to prevent a premature demise.

But Mehmet Oz, a physician and host of "The Dr. Oz Show," told the National Association of Black Journalists convention last month in San Diego that a change of strategy has to occur to get people to adopt healthier habits. Doctors, health care workers and government officials have to appeal to folks' "feelings" instead of hitting them with mind-numbing data.

The numbers are a turnoff. People have to "turn on" to change because it "feels" like the right thing to do.

This was the second national black convention in a month to put health concerns at the top of the agenda. The first was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's meeting in Kansas City.

In each case, blacks can't do their jobs as journalists or as civil rights workers in the 21st century if they are too broken down and sick to move.

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, who spoke at the black journalists' convention, agreed with Oz, a cardiologist.

"We talk about it in the negative," she said. "We need to talk about how fun it is, how good it is to be healthy and live in a healthy way."

Benjamin said the national strategy has to shift from hospitals and doctors providing "sick care" to one of wellness and prevention. She said a prevention council of cabinet-level secretaries was being put together to develop a national prevention focus by 2014.

Its goal would be to prevent such illnesses as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But a concern is that prevention would take away business from health care companies like those that produce heart stints.

Myriad pharmaceutical, insurance, equipment makers and other companies profit from people's long-term illnesses from poor health habits. That puts Benjamin's and others' efforts at odds with fast food, tobacco, alcohol, soft drink, junk food, pharmaceutical and media giants.

The companies have marketed unhealthy products and habits to consumers. People then view their purchases as a freedom-of-choice issue. Any effort to change that draws cries of "socialism," "government takeover" and "nanny state," which feeds unhealthy cycles that are deadly for the population.

Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society, said at the black journalists convention that "the behaviors have been normalized."