The Vision is a game plan for the entire fitness industry to make America a culture of wellness from the ground-up, by encouraging local clubs to work together to advocate for health promotion legislation, both at the state and federal levels, and to also work toward making their clubs valuable community resources for disease prevention and healthy living. It consists of five principles of a culture that views primary prevention and healthy lifestyles as the key to good health and managing health care costs.
The Vision is predicated on Senate Resolution 97, passed unanimously by the United States Senate on March 9, 2011. The resolution encourages exercise to prevent disease, combat obesity, and lower health care costs. Its passage signals that our country’s leaders now fully recognize the importance of exercise to our nation and its people.
The Vision for a Healthier, More Prosperous America:
I. Primary prevention – the prevention of a disease before it occurs, including regular exercise, healthy eating, avoidance of tobacco and other controlled substances, stress management, and routine medical exams – is critical to the public health and future economic competitiveness of our country. It saves lives, encourages increased individual responsibility, increases worker productivity, and lowers federal health care expenditures.
II. As individuals, professionals, and taxpayers, we must recognize and encourage the role of primary prevention in reducing the toll that chronic diseases have taken on our country.
III. Since the late 1980s, roughly two-thirds of the increase in health care spending in the United States has been due to the increased prevalence of treated chronic disease. Today, about half of all Americans suffer from one or more chronic disease. A greater emphasis on primary prevention would significantly reduce the annual cost of treating chronic disease (currently $1.5 trillion) in the United States.
IV. According to The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, primary prevention may prevent 80% of heart disease and stroke, 80% of type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancer. A greater emphasis on primary prevention would significantly reduce the incidence rate of preventable chronic disease.
V. Individually and collectively, we must help our citizens, legislators, and community leaders understand and respond to the documented correlation between chronic disease and primary prevention. We must actively promote public policies and principles that promote primary prevention and personal responsibility, such as financial incentives, and that remove barriers to healthy lifestyle choices...We also must support businesses, health professionals, and local public health communities to encourage individuals to accept personal responsibility for many aspects of their own health through the active practice of primary prevention.
