Cost of chronic illness will break healthcare system If people do not change their ways, healthcare will become the largest segment of the economy, estimated to reach $4.2 trillion, in three years (2015). It will severely impact the quality of life for all Americans as it drains the federal budget of funds needed for other services. As the cost of healthcare rises, individuals and employers alike will bear the burden not only in larger deductions, co-payments and cost of prescriptions, but in funding the rest of the system. Baby boomers are the most obese generation ever. One-third struggle with being overweight or obese. Baby boomers aren’t the only ones. One in three children and a

 Celebrity chef Nikki Shaw, a finalist on “The Next Food Network Star,” will give a demonstration on healthy cooking and talk about obesity in African Americans at the Sacramento Food Bank Tuesday. “We’re getting hit the hardest with overweight and obesity issues,” Shaw said. “I think the best way to get the message across is to talk directly to the public. We are in the middle of a crisis, and the crisis is that 76 percent of African American adults in California are overweight.” She travels between Sacramento and San Diego giving demonstrations and spreading awareness about the importance of healthy eating habits. Tuesday’s demonstration is a collaboration with the Network for a Healt

SACRAMENTO – In a new twist to the benefit walk, area residents who support the health of our region’s children will walk Arden Fair Mall on Saturday, Oct. 17, as part of Together for Kids’ fund-raising campaign called Walk Across America. A full 100 percent of the funds raised during the local walk will go directly to the specialty care services at the Children’s Center at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, where many of the children throughout the region and beyond receive their care from birth to 18 years old for conditions ranging from low birth weight, cancer and brain tumors to diabetes and congenital heart defects. The goal of the Sacramento walk is to help bring better health care

An article in the SacBee today discusses a Legislative Analysts’s suggestion that junior colleges either drop PE classes, or that the colleges be paid less to offer them than the level of state funding provided for classes that are deemed more academic in content. These are the one-unit classes that are offered in subjects such as golf, tennis, and bowling. The inference is that these classes are not worthwhile and don’t deserve to be subsidized at the same level as other classes. This seems like an odd standard to apply. As the article points out, students wanting to graduate or transfer are typically required to have one of these classes. What the article doesn’t point out is that that