The Real Cost of Obesity
No matter what health care delivery system this country adopts, no matter what plan or series of plans are enacted, it will be bankrupted in no time by the ongoing obesity epidemic if we don't act now. President Obama talks about adopting a plan that's revenue neutral. But no current cost model could ever compete with this frightening trend.
This week we learned that spending on obesity-related medical issues jumped 82 percent from 2001 to 2006, with the current price tag $147 billion a year.
But these startling stats really aren't that startling when you also learn that two-thirds of American adults and one-third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese. Today, the typical baby boomer male weighs just shy of 200 pounds and the average baby boomer female weighs more than 170. I'm afraid this isn't news for us preventive cardiologists. Unfortunately, we treat obese patients with heart disease, prediabetes and diabetes, and dozens of other obesity-related ailments in our practices every day.
And it's not just cardiologists who deal with these issues. Many people with weight problems look to their primary-care doctors to solve this burgeoning battle of the bulge. But the sad fact is that most doctors don't have the practical experience to make a dent in this epidemic, as much as they'd like to.
Fighting obesity is really a public health issue that must be centered in individual communities, workplaces, and schools and involve grassroots action and education. And the initiative must get into high gear now.
We need to create communities where fresh and healthier food, not just fast food, is within easy access, where there are paved sidewalks and bike paths that encourage physical activity, where the opportunity to exercise is more widely available in the workplace. We need schools where physical education is mandatory and playgrounds are plentiful. We need schools that teach our children about healthy eating at an early age (with hands-on vegetable garden "science labs" that excite kids about eating what they grow). And in those same schools we need healthier cafeteria meals and nutritious snacks in the vending machines. Furthermore, we need to encourage busy families to sit down at the dinner table together, even if it's only once a week.
And we can't stop there. There's no argument that fresh vegetables are better for kids than potato chips and that regular exercise is essential for maintaining a healthy body. But while we know these ideas work, we should never become complacent. We should always be evaluating their efficacy. Even in this difficult economic climate, we need to continually be investing research dollars (and perhaps some of that stimulus money) to determine what's most impactful. And we must never stop looking for new ways to make our nation healthier.
Unless we do something soon, the billions we're currently paying in weight-related medical bills will seem like a drop in the bucket. Ultimately the escalating obesity-related costs alone can sink any health care system we put into place in this country.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
It is a national problem as well as an individual problem. http://blo
What a bunch of hooey!
What about the Helsinki Businessmen Study? The results were ‘obese’ or ‘overweight’ is associated in the medical literature with a better prognosis and lower death rates compared with ‘normal’ weight people, especially as people get older. The men who’d been overweight but lost weight during middle adulthood to reach normal weights had about two times the risk of death compared to normal weight men or the men who’d just stayed fat. Diet industry/Medical industry/pharma industry/food industry don't want that news getting out - you betcha!
How about the study, led by Heather M. Orpana, Ph.D., from Statistics Canada where they wanted to estimate the relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality.
The results showed "A significant increased risk of mortality over the 12 years of follow-up was observed for underweight (BMI
Thank you for posting this blog. I have been saying that for years, but I am not a doctor. Now you have.
There was this idea floating around that smokers, drinkers and overeaters cost a lot up front but in the long run they cost less because they die sooner. Has that idea been shown false?
I don't think that smokers and drinkers are dependent on expensive medicine for years before they die as obese people are.
Stress and beer have kept me slim....an
if it only costs a few dollars or came out of a box than it is not a healthy meal.
Start teaching your children good nutrition from the start. My grandson does not drink whole milk [mostly fat free] or soft drinks, not white bread red meat and a very occasional sweet treat that he never finishes, he loves fat free yogurt, drinks water.....
That's a start but have you seen the amount of sugar in most yogurts? It's shocking. And it's not enough to cut back on unhealthy saturated fats, you also have to get enough good fats or your immune and digestive systems will not function properly. Because we don't have an established healthy food culture in this country like other, more ancient cultures do, we need to have serious nutrition training throughout our population.
THe obesity epidemic impacts other areas like Architecture design. Last year I worked on a new hospital and 10%-20% of all accommodations had to be beriatric. So a percentage of exam rooms were beriatric, seating and furniture in waiting rooms were beriatric. Aside from possibly presenting a design challenge this added a significant cost for the actual furniture (with heavy duty reinforced steel support), and to the overall space allocated to accommodate this problem. ADA regulations had a similar impact on Design and Architecture when that legislation was passed but folks are disabled for any number of reasons. Now we are simply accommodating obesity rather than dealing with it head on.
We tax tobacco products to discourage use and we could do the same to sweetened drinks and sweet or fatty snacks. BUT healthy fresh foods are seasonal and much more perishable, except for dried grains and legumes. So it is hard to provide fresh foods at reasonable cost.
We are all only a few generations from living on the farm where heavy physical labor was the norm six days a week. And the cows had to be milked and all the farm animals fed and watered seven days a week. And water had to be carried for cooking and washing. All the clothes were hung on the line. All the fields in the eastern part of the U.S. had to be cleared of trees and stumps before being planted to crops. Even hunting for wild food uses a lot of calories.
Our traditional foods were all designed to get a lot of calories into the body of the hard physical workers.
Apple pie: fat and flour and water to make a crust and then sugar and fruit so make it palatable so lots of calories could be ingested very quickly. And of course my kids wanted pie crust baked with cinnamon and sugar !! But we lived on a farm and they were skinny. Then.
But we can change our diets if we know how. Public service announcements anyone?
And the apple pie you made probably wasn't full of chemicals and other c rap like the ones some kids eat today from the store.
I can remember I used to work in a food bank for poor and homeless people, and we couldn't GIVE away healthy food. No one wanted the broccoli or wheat bread, everyone wanted the wonder bread and macaroni and cheese. When we would trim the selection and have less and less processed foods and more healthy stuff, we'd just run out of the processed foods and the healthy food would rot. Nutrition classes were offered, but it was so hard to get through to people. They would think of candy as junk food, and stuff like mac and cheese or spaggetios as healthy, and it was very rarely that anything we explained to them convinced them otherwise.
Many folks don't know how to prepare fresh food. That is a problem that is growing.. when someone thinks that heating up easymac is cooking.. we have a problem. In addition to phys ed.. how bout more home ec?
Amen!!! More home ec would do wonders for this problem.
Hey! You're onto something. Bring home economics back to the schools. I took home ec, but it was joke. How to make drain cleaner? We did NO cooking at all. And it was for only one semester, so you can't do much in that little span of time. So, yes, bring back home ec but REAL home ec!
They've been taught that all their life, and they won't let go of it.
Part of the problem is that we adapt to certain tastes and the junk food producers know that our brains, because of evolutionary needs, adapted to seeking out fat, sweet, and salty. Those things used to be very difficult to come by and we needed to eat as much as we could when we came across them. Now, the shelves are loaded with fatty sweet and salty foods. It's hard, more so for some than others, to undue a lifetime of eating patterns that have an evolutionary basis. Also, food companies have pushed for a long time to convince people that any food containing traces of dairy, fruit, or added vitamins is healthy. Nobody is out there explaining micronutrients, live enzymes, and healthy fats to people. We do need public service announcements - but free of food industry influence. Let trained nutritionists lead the way.
As long as we allow food companies to sell processed foods with preservatives, hydrogenated bad fat, sugar, salt , sugar syrups, pesticides and preservatives, people will eat them because they have a shelf life, won't spoil, are easy to eat, and taste good. They've made the term "fun food" part of our vocabulary and everyday diet. Commercials show thin, active, young, healthy people eating this garbage incorporating it into a scene of healthy living and fun. It's deceptive and morally inexcusable. Foods that have no nutritional value should be banned because everyone has to pay the rising health costs. People won't stop eating them because they either won't do the research, listen to evidence, are ignorant, too busy, too poor , too whatever; it has to be taken out of their hands. For most garbage that people eat, a healthy alternative could be substituted.
Fast Food Lobbyists; help make these shysters a thing of the past...
No, I don't think a ban is such a hot idea. This is a free country, last i checked. Free means I eat what I want. If it makes me sick I deal with the consequences. With freedom comes responsibility. I don't want anyone making these decisions for me. Let people find out for themselves what eating badly will do to them.
Moderation is the key.
Practice that and you can eat anything, and not worry.
Hummm, and you have the blood work numbers from tests to prove this "key" to solving obesity?
Individual needs/reactions & physical make up are not always resolved with the moderation solution; yet keeping the solution "simple stupid" certainly is.
Not necessarily true. People who have obesity problems, especially stubborn obesity, need to have many things checked such as blood sugar levels, thyroid function, adrenal gland and pituitary gland function, etc. Moderation is great if you are already healthy but those of us with chronic diseases often require specialized diets.
Lets face it, as far as controlling obesity in our generation we have to concede the fact that we have lost the battle, lets give people some options to control their quality of life, decrease their mobid obesity, and we will have accomplished something. the most important thing that we can do right now, is fix this problem for our children! We need to start teaching proper nutrition in our schools, our homes and our communities. we need to take pop machines out of schools as well as candy machines out of our schools. As a pediatric nurse I see children with digestive problems which are not normally seen till clients are 45 or 50 years of age! Type II diabetes use to be what we called adulth onset, now we are seeing it in children. We talk about smoking, we talk about alcohol, and we stop at McD's on the way home buy a big mac, fries and coke and supersize it for the kids! We need to demand physical education in our schools, we need to promote programs which take children out of the house and into the yard.
They should show kids the movie "supersize me" in every school to see what eating fast food does to them, and what poison it is.
I almost had chest pains just watching that film...
That's not a bad idea.
I haven't eaten a McD french fry since I saw the extra on Supersize me where the fries never change... they don't rot, they don't decay, they don't change.... eek.
Last sentence from previous comments reads.....
so all in all, the obese child and/or adult are the biggest losers (and not as in weight-loss either) in this game of corporate dominance.
All of you go back and do a little thinking - and you will pinpoint when all of this obesity came into prominence - junk-food availability to children from grade schools through colleges.
Once the junk-food corporations were allowed contracts to go into all of the schools all over the country - and 'supply' all the sugared - sodas, 'juice' drinks, cookies, cupcakes, twinkies, gums, candy bars, - AND salted - chips, nuts, cheetos, potato chips, tortilla chips, cornnuts, and all the other miscellaneous crap - then these children - that were the first to be addicted to this kind of food - THEY are the ones who have grown up to become obese adults....
But - because these were major corporations (with huge contracts on the line - with the school districts ) - the corporations were smart enough to offer 'kickbacks' to the usually under-funded school districts - which the school districts jumped at......an
Yank the vending machines out and don't allow these corporations to also go on supplying food for the school-lunch programs..
The schools don't have any conscience any more - and the parents don't take time to think about consequences - so all in all, the obese child and/or adult are
Yes. but you have to fund schools at the same time. You can't just keep cutting schools' budgets and expect no consequences. As a former public band director, I've been just as guilty as anyone else of using candy for fundraisers. Why? It sells and it has a better profit margin than just about anything else. I did not allow my students to sell during the school day though. I preferred other ways of making money - car wash-a-thons and dinners, etc. - but we had to support the program in some way because the money just didn't come from the school district.
But I do agree that there was a change in times when vending machines came into schools. I think we are beginning to see a shift back from that. At least, I believe many schools are making those vending machines off limits as certain key times during the day. However, I take issue with the outside vendors who offer lunch menus in closed campuses that are fast-food fare: Taco Bell and Pizza Hut are two of the worst. I also think that the lunch menu options within cafeterias should not include items such as soft pretzels and cheese and nachos. I think they should have to conform to some standard.
They can put fresh fruit, nuts and juice in those vending machines. And they could go back to planning menus the way they did 30 years ago (instead of coming up with a new plan when the old way worked fine)
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
