Almost 10 percent of healthcare costs— $240 billion — is spent on diseases directly connected to obesity.

Americans are suffering the consequences of overeating, making poor nutritional choices, eating junk food, and being sedentary. We are not seriously addressing the significant damaging effects being overweight has on us, our children, and our entire nation.

While the debate in Washington heats up on healthcare reform, focus is finally shifting from purely addressing disease and end-of-life expenses to prevention.

Obesity has crept up in the United States over the past 40 years. The medical problems it causes have also been identified for at least 30 years. Diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and strokes are but a few of the medical and surgical problems directly connected to obesity. Hospitals and clinics carry much of the burden overweight places on our healthcare system. But it isn’t all about financial burden.

As advocates of prevention underscore the fact that prevention lowers healthcare costs, we must take responsibility and address prevention in our personal and family lives.

So, while the government debates and the politicians and economists polemicize, why don’t we address our personal struggles with weight gain and obesity and start implementing simple, common-sense changes that will help maintain our health, starting today.

I am sure the results will amaze you, and by the time the system catches up with us, we will be a fitter, trimmer nation. What’s more, the healthcare crisis will have become a thing of the past because you and I decided to become healthy and lose some weight.

Here is what we should do:

1. Start walking 20 minutes a day.

2. Stop drinking soda. Eliminate sugar-free and regular soda from your diet.

3. Limit alcohol. Cut back to half the amount of beer, wine, and hard liquor you drink a week.

4. Drink more water. Increase your water intake to four to six glasses a day. If you don’t like plain water, squeeze a little lemon or lime in it.

5. Skip the fried foods. It’s just as easy to bake or broil a piece of meat or fish as it is to fry. The difference is that baked or broiled is healthy.

6. Eat some vegetables. Choose fresh of flash frozen. They are tasty and healthy.

7. Eliminate processed foods. Skip canned foods and prepackaged foods unless they are flash frozen.

8. Get some sleep. Regardless of how busy you are, get six to seven hours of sleep a night. You will get healthier and feel better.

9. Spend some time being kind and loving to family and friends. When you are kind and loving, healthy hormones are released in your body and make you feel better.

10. Put some passion in your work. If you like your work and put more passion into it, you will find yourself eating a lot less junk.

These may not be the only ways to eliminate the country’s obesity problem, but they’re a good start.