Muhtar Kent Quotes

We can all agree that government can't solve the obesity crisis alone. It's an ongoing issue that will require a collaborative effort across private and public sectors if we want to see some long-term success.

This country must break the cycle of childhood obesity. Unless we reverse course, this epidemic will continue to put more of our children and the future of our nation at risk.

It has always been the role of government to help solve problems, including and especially health crises. Obesity is a health epidemic across our country, and we have a responsibility as a government and a society to do all we can to promote good nutrition and healthy eating so we can reverse this alarming trend.

I brought together experts from health care, business, academic institutions, and the community to develop a comprehensive blueprint for eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care in the City of Boston.

Fixing obesity is going to require a change in our modern relationship with food. I'm hopeful that we begin to see a turnaround in this childhood obesity epidemic.

We need a grassroots movement and government policies and programs to change the food landscape and the built environment to give our children a chance to have happy, healthy successful lives.

For in the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.

We must form public-private partnerships to collectively improve children's health.

I loved clinical practice, but in public health, you can impact more than one person at a time. The whole society is your patient.

I've said in the past that if I were Prime Minister, I would ban obesity.

Many people believe that dealing with overweight and obesity is a personal responsibility. To some degree they are right, but it is also a community responsibility. When there are no safe, accessible places for children to play or adults to walk, jog, or ride a bike, that is a community responsibility.

A healthy society rests on three pillars: business, government and civil society, or non-profits. Each has a distinct and important role to play, and all three need to work together synergistically to create the most value for society.

As obesity creeps into preschools, and hypertension and type II diabetes become pediatric problems for the very first time, the case for starting preventive health care in the cradle has become too compelling to keep ignoring.

Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

We should be concerned not only about the health of individual patients, but also the health of our entire society.

Do you remember campaigns like 'Keep America beautiful'? What about 'Buckle up'? I believe we need an approach like this to attack obesity. Let's be a good industry that does 100% of what it possibly can - not grudgingly, but willingly.

If we don't somehow stem the tide of childhood obesity, we're going to have a huge problem.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It's because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand - demand - demand change.

Epidemics, like disasters, have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact.

Soon after joining the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, I was called upon as part of team to respond to a malaria outbreak. My team was dispatched to a village in southwestern Ethiopia, where I not only observed the malaria epidemic's shocking effects on adults and children but also experienced it first-hand.

Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons, that constitutes a public health issue.

Health is more than absence of disease; it is about economics, education, environment, empowerment, and community. The health and well being of the people is critically dependent upon the health system that serves them. It must provide the best possible health with the least disparities and respond equally well to everyone.

One cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the community, from the health of the world.

Let's face it, we really did need something like this in this country to fight childhood obesity.