Practically everyone has heard the statistics: Obesity rates in the United States have increased 60 percent over the last 10 years. You don’t even need the statistics; you can see it on the streets, in office buildings and on playgrounds.

What’s harder to see are the health consequences, and the impact on health care costs, not to mention the social and economic costs. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and poor diet and physical inactivity are among the leading causes of heart disease.

Obesity is also a primary risk factor in such chronic diseases as high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and even arthritis — illnesses that deprive people of the fullness of life, including a productive work life. Most alarmingly, obesity is shortening the projected lifespan of our children. Because of their obesity rate, the current generation of our youth is the first in history whose lifespan is projected to be lower than their parents’.

If you’ve followed this column, you know my concerns about how obesity affects our health system, our business productivity and, especially, the health and longevity of our children. I’ve given statistics from research the YMCA co-sponsored here in Tucson to study the relationship between activity and obesity in children. The YMCA’s "Activate America" and "America on the Move" programs cite research showing how much obesity is increasing as the amount of activity declines in Americans’ daily lives. We’ve also shown how even small improvements in activity and nutrition can have big results.

Recently I was invited to make a presentation at a conference co-sponsored by the YMCA of the USA, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. My co-presenter was Dawn Parker of Health Net of Arizona. Dawn and I work together on the YMCA’s Activate Tucson program, and we were invited to talk about some of its successes.

Through Activate Tucson, we have been encouraging local businesses to try prevention programs to help reduce absenteeism, increase productivity and cut down health care costs. Activate Tucson was a good fit for the conference, which focused on what communities and businesses can do to support people’s efforts to manage chronic illnesses.

To me, the most memorable aspect of the conference was its focus on just how big a difference small changes can make. According to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, a 12 – to 13-point reduction in blood pressure can reduce heart attacks 21 percent, strokes 37 percent, and cardiovascular disease deaths 25 percent. A 10 percent decrease in total cholesterol levels could reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease to 30 percent of its current level.

But the Center’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) found that over a two-year period, 77 percent of respondents didn’t eat enough fruit and vegetables, and 49 percent didn’t have enough physical activity.

One of our fellow presenters, Mark Fenton of America’s Walking, summed things up memorably. He said, "I’d like to change the conversation. It’s not an obesity epidemic. It’s an epidemic of physical inactivity and poor nutrition."

It all comes down to one thing: motivating individuals to make the small changes in their lives that will improve their health. Doing so will improve their lives in ways they can only discover by getting healthy. It will improve their work lives and their families’ lives, too. Ultimately, it will pay off in benefits to us all as they become better able to participate fully in our community.

Through Activate Tucson, Activate America, America on the Move and many other programs, the YMCA of Southern Arizona is already working with people who are ready to make those first small steps. You can help, too, just by getting a friend or co-worker to walk with you. And if you have employees, you may find that supporting or organizing prevention programs and incentives can save you thousands in health care costs and lost productivity.

Contact Dane Woll, president and CEO of the YMCA of Southern Arizona, at danew@tucsonymca.org. His Getting Fit column appears quarterly and is next scheduled to be in the Dec. 29 issue of Inside Tucson Business.