Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Calls for National Campaign To Address Childhood Obesity

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday called for a "massive" national campaign to address the issue of childhood obesity, one similar to efforts to reduce smoking rates and the spread of HIV/AIDS, CongressDaily reports. "We are setting up millions of children for health problems that they and we are going to pay for," Clinton said, adding, "We are undermining their future productivity because of these health problems." According to Clinton, lawmakers have not addressed the issue of childhood obesity in part "because of special interest lobbies that don't want us to educate people and speak out about it." She added, "If this were an infectious disease ... that was having this kind of impact, we would be up in arms" (Rovner, CongressDaily, 5/6).