President Obama announced Monday his choice for surgeon general - Dr. Regina Benjamin, a 52-year-old family practice doctor who has spent most of her career tending to the needs of poor patients in a Gulf Coast clinic in Alabama.

He called Benjamin "a relentless promoter" of programs to fight preventable illness.

Benjamin cited the toll of preventable illness as the reason her family was not with her at the announcement: Her father died with diabetes and high blood pressure; her older brother and only sibling died at age 44 of an HIV-related illness; her mother died of lung cancer after taking up smoking as a girl; her mother's twin brother could not attend because he is at home "struggling for each breath" after a lifetime of smoking.

"I cannot change my family's past, but I can be a voice to improve our nation's health for the future," she said.

So why is it she can see/fight this in her family, yet she appears to not be following that education, being obese/overweight?