I read an article in today's newspaper that said that health care spending on obesity and its related health problems costs this country a whopping $147 billion - yes, you saw that right, billion with a "B" and comprises over 10% of all health care costs incurred in the U.S. Compare that with 1987 when spending on obesity related illnesses comprised only 2% of health care costs. Obviously, if this country is going to manage any real health care reform, something must first be done about our out-of-control obesity epidemic in this country. I see it all the time wherever I go - younger and younger people needing scooters to get around because they're too fat to walk. Part of the problem can be blamed on the food industry. After WWII, our food economy became, thanks to government subsidies, largely corn based, with high fructose corn syrup replacing sugar as our main sweetener in foods. It's shocking to see how many items on grocery store shelves contail high fructose corn syrup - almost everything you buy contains some of it. And frankly, the corn we consume today, that wonderfully familiar yellow and white corn we all love on a summer night for dinner, was never meant for human consumption. It was originally grown as cattle feed to fatten them up and is very starchy and has almost no real nutritional value whatsoever. What we erroneously call "Indian corn", that multi-colored corn you see decorating fences in the autumn, is what we should be eating because that has the real nutrition we need. But the food industry has narrowed our palates to just a few not very nutritious vegetables. And restaurants lately have taken to serving way oversized portions as well, contributing to our country's growing fatness. Add to that the fact that schools have had pop machines in them for years because faced with shrinking budgets, schools can get big money from pop distributors by agreeing to put pop machines in schools, tempting kids to drink sugary drinks instead of healthy milk or water. Dentists report seeing more really bad teeth among younger and younger children, adding even more to our burgeoning health care costs in this country. So before we enact health care reform legislation, we as a country need to take a good hard look at our lifestyles and diets and do a major overhaul of those as well. It's all related. Mandatory physical education in schools K-12, healthier foods served in cafeterias, no more supersized portions in restaurants, pedestrian friendly cities that encourage more walking and less driving and more wellness incentives in workplaces like lower health insurance costs for employees proactively doing something to improve their health - these are just a few of the small steps that can be taken to start attacking obesity and bring down health care costs, because as long as it continues its epidemic toll on younger and younger populations, the cost of treating obesity and its related diseases will continue to be a real drain on our economy. Until obesity is addressed as an underlying cause of our country's growing health care crisis, nothing is ever going to change and health care costs will continue to skyrocket out of control.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Obesity and the cost of health care
I read an article in today's newspaper that said that health care spending on obesity and its related health problems costs this country a whopping $147 billion - yes, you saw that right, billion with a "B" and comprises over 10% of all health care costs incurred in the U.S. Compare that with 1987 when spending on obesity related illnesses comprised only 2% of health care costs. Obviously, if this country is going to manage any real health care reform, something must first be done about our out-of-control obesity epidemic in this country. I see it all the time wherever I go - younger and younger people needing scooters to get around because they're too fat to walk. Part of the problem can be blamed on the food industry. After WWII, our food economy became, thanks to government subsidies, largely corn based, with high fructose corn syrup replacing sugar as our main sweetener in foods. It's shocking to see how many items on grocery store shelves contail high fructose corn syrup - almost everything you buy contains some of it. And frankly, the corn we consume today, that wonderfully familiar yellow and white corn we all love on a summer night for dinner, was never meant for human consumption. It was originally grown as cattle feed to fatten them up and is very starchy and has almost no real nutritional value whatsoever. What we erroneously call "Indian corn", that multi-colored corn you see decorating fences in the autumn, is what we should be eating because that has the real nutrition we need. But the food industry has narrowed our palates to just a few not very nutritious vegetables. And restaurants lately have taken to serving way oversized portions as well, contributing to our country's growing fatness. Add to that the fact that schools have had pop machines in them for years because faced with shrinking budgets, schools can get big money from pop distributors by agreeing to put pop machines in schools, tempting kids to drink sugary drinks instead of healthy milk or water. Dentists report seeing more really bad teeth among younger and younger children, adding even more to our burgeoning health care costs in this country. So before we enact health care reform legislation, we as a country need to take a good hard look at our lifestyles and diets and do a major overhaul of those as well. It's all related. Mandatory physical education in schools K-12, healthier foods served in cafeterias, no more supersized portions in restaurants, pedestrian friendly cities that encourage more walking and less driving and more wellness incentives in workplaces like lower health insurance costs for employees proactively doing something to improve their health - these are just a few of the small steps that can be taken to start attacking obesity and bring down health care costs, because as long as it continues its epidemic toll on younger and younger populations, the cost of treating obesity and its related diseases will continue to be a real drain on our economy. Until obesity is addressed as an underlying cause of our country's growing health care crisis, nothing is ever going to change and health care costs will continue to skyrocket out of control.
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2 comments:
I'm with you re: portions. Our ideas of what constitutes a "normal serving size" have shifted a great deal and that explains a lot.
I am on a diet these days, and have managed to lose some weight - this is great, but I find that I now question all portion sizes, even on days when I really should be having seconds.
The whole corn industry thing is quite interesting (mind you, that is my favourite food on the planet). However, I don't think you could say the food industry has limited what vegetables we can consume. It seems to me that when I come to the U.S., I see a very wide variety of healthy vegetables in the grocery stores - everything from Asparagus to Zucchini. Whether or not people are choosing to cook with these is another question. This, to me, is the chief dietary problem of today: not enough people know how to cook from scratch. It's healthier and cheaper, and tastes a lot better!
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