Arkansas governor loses pounds, saves money cycling: Obesity costs states about as much as tobacco-related diseases

A Kansas City infoZine article talks about Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's plan to get state employees eating less and moving more:

After being diagnosed with diabetes last spring, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) started exercising, eating healthier and lost more than 90 pounds. Now Huckabee is leading the way to trim pounds from his state employees and hopefully health care costs from the Arkansas budget. . . .

"The issue of health has to become a lifestyle," Huckabee said in a telephone interview. Eating habits already have started changing in his Little Rock, Ark., office. Instead of pastries, co-workers now bring in fruit and vegetable trays. His office held a contest: whoever walked the most steps in a month using a pedometer was rewarded with the best parking spot for two weeks.

More and more states are waking up to the perils of obesity because of the skyrocketing effects on their health care expenses, which already eat up a third of state budgets. Obesity now costs states almost as much in medical expenditures as tobacco-related diseases, according to an Issue Brief by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.