While Gallup.com brought you hundreds of unique health and well-being findings in 2010, we at Thrive want to jump on the end-of-year wrap-up story bandwagon and give you our insights on five of this year's biggest health news stories.
The Affordable Care Act Becomes Law
President Obama on March 23, 2010, signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The bill, in part, aims to expand coverage to the uninsured. The new law came as Gallup found the percentage of uninsured American adults remained elevated from early 2008 levels. Nearly one in six American adults were uninsured in November, up from 14.8% when Gallup began tracking healthcare coverage in January 2008. Gallup monitors Americans' health insurance coverage daily and will continue to regularly report on it in the months and years ahead.
The First Lady Fights Obesity
Michelle Obama in February 2010 launched the national "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity in the United States. The program got started as Gallup tracked a rise in adult obesity; there are approximately 3 million more obese American adults now than there were at the start of 2008, when Gallup began asking Americans daily about their weight. The first lady's program seeks to engage not just children, but also school leaders and families and promotes healthy eating and physical activity. Gallup also finds less than 3 in 10 American adults exercise regularly, so "Let's Move" may be what the nation's youngest generation needs to get America on a healthier track.
KFC Launches the Double Down
While Mrs. Obama was doing her best to help American families get healthy, KFC was taking advantage of an apparent hole in the marketplace for a breadless fried chicken, bacon, and cheese "sandwich." The introduction of this grease-laden product came at a time when Gallup found less than half of Americans reporting eating the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables regularly. Additionally, Gallup data find low-income Americans -- a group who may be more likely to purchase low-cost and easily available fast food -- are already less likely to eat the government-recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and significantly more likely to be obese. So, KFC's high-sodium, high-fat Double Down -- although certainly not the only unhealthy food choice in the world -- isn't serving Americans' need for more highly nutritious diet options.
Californians Say No to Legalizing Marijuana
As Americans across the country voted for Republican candidates in huge numbers, California voters, by about a 10-point margin, rejected a ballot initiative that would have legalized recreational marijuana use in the state. Gallup, in a national poll, conducted just a month before Californians voted on Proposition 19, found a new high of 46% of American adults supported making the use of marijuana legal. While 50% of Americans are still opposed to legalizing the substance, the percentage who support legalization has been steadily trending up since 2000.
U.K. Prime Minister Announces Plans to Measure Well-Being
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron in November announced his plans to start measuring residents' subjective well-being and use the data to inform policymaking. Cameron believes the nation needs a better way of tracking its progress, stating in a November speech that "GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country's progress." The same week that the British government asked the national statistician to start devising well-being questions, Gallup was already out with its own findings on Britons' well-being.
Gallup is a leader in measuring subjective well-being, engaging high-level experts including Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and well-known author and professor Ed Diener, in the creation of its metrics. Additionally, Gallup measures well-being worldwide in more than 150 countries, and tracks it daily in the United States. Continuing its dominance in the arena, Gallup will in January 2011 expand the breadth and frequency of its well-being tracking in the United Kingdom, asking existing questions monthly and adding the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index questions already asked in the U.S.
Gallup is also out today with its top 10 U.S. well-being discoveries in 2010.
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