Color, rather than shape, is more closely related to emotion.

We are creatures. We have a link with a native habitat just like every other species. Throughout most of human history, physical activity was unavoidable, calories were scarce and hard to get. In the modern era, calories are unavoidable, physical activity is scare and hard to get. The traits that allowed our ancestors to survive, and let's face it, the survival of our ancestors is the reason that we're here because the people who don't survive and make very crummy ancestors, are our traits. But they're very much at odds with the modern environment.

When I went to medical school, I was taught about two basic kinds of diabetes: juvenile onset and adult onset. From the time I did my training in medical school to the end of my residency we were already seeing the transformation of adult onset diabetes into Type II, which is what we call it now, which from my perspective is a euphemism we have draped over this condition to conceal the fact that what was a chronic disease in midlife is now epidemic in children. Frankly, Type II diabetes in a seven year old is adult onset diabetes. We just don't want to confront that unpleasant fact.

I naturally gravitate toward the big picture which isn't necessarily advantageous when you go on to a career in research because successful researchers usually choose a pretty narrow channel. So having tunnel vision actually helps you stay where you are supposed to stay. The big picture in medical care was looking at the underlying causes of all of this pathology. I really wanted to do something about that and play a meaningful role in changing the trajectory of people's lives and their health and by changing their health, changing the quality of their lives.

Epidemic obesity is an enormous problem. It's a pendulum that's swung too far. We have to swing it back. So it should come as no surprise that solution must be built from the ground up on the banks of this flooding river and it must be raised to a height higher than flood waters. Now what does that look like? It looks like policies and programs that cultivate healthy levels of physical activity, healthy dietary patterns in homes, in schools, in supermarkets, in neighborhoods, in clinics, in churches, in workplaces, throughout our society, every place we can reach people.

I think basic disease care access and basic access to health care is a human right. If we need a constitutional amendment to put it in the Bill of Rights, then that's what we ought to do. Nobody with a conscience would leave the victim of a shark attack to bleed while we figure out whether or not they could pay for care. That tells us that at some level, health care access is a basic human right. Our system should be aligned so that our policies match our morality. Then within that system where everybody has access, we need to incentivize prevention, both for the patient and the provider.

My view of chronic disease prevention of fighting epidemic obesity and diabetes, of turning the tide, is that it is the job of professionals to pave the way and to cultivate the will; to stir people up so that they understand the stakes, so that they recognize that adult onset diabetes stalking children is a clear and omnipresent danger. The wolves are at the door. You must defend hearth and home. And here are the means to do it: we must provide programs, policies, tools and resources so that everybody can do the job.