Clinton HHS head: Obesity a nat'l security threat

President Clinton’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala says that obesity is a national security threat, which MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell attributed to a cut in education spending.

“It’s really scary,” Shalala, representing the Bipartisan Policy Institute, said of military-aged young adults. “Twenty-seven percent of young people between 17 and 24 are obese . . . It’s the first generation of young people to come through without mandatory physical education in their schools.” Mitchell said that “the lack of physical education is because of budget cuts in the schools.”