Obesity costs California dearly

[azul]

LOS ANGELES, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Obesity cost California more than 41 billion dollars in health care costs and lost production in 2006, according to a report released on Thursday.

There was a 33-percent rise in statewide obesity rates since the last report in 2000, said the report released by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA).

The report estimated that costs of obesity across the state could balloon to 53 billion dollars by 2011.

In Los Angeles County, the cost of obesity was nearly 12 billion dollars in 2006, said the report.

Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, director of Los Angeles County Public Health, called the numbers "staggering," saying they should be a wake-up call for residents to take steps to combat obesity and inactivity.

~snip

"To put this in perspective, the economic cost to California of adults who are obese, overweight and physically inactive is equivalent to more than a third of the state's total budget," said state Controller John Chiang. "Think of the programs we could protect, the children we could educate and the families we could help if we could recapture those dollars by investing in prevention. These figures demonstrate the real and very unsettling financial impact of the obesity epidemic on a California economy already in crisis."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/10/content_11683740.htm


This is what is driving me crazy. We're poisoning ourselves with synthetic chemicals and we won't even investigate the problem or find the cure because there is a giant healthcare industry that gets rewarded by more and more illness.

It is a viscious circle of government subsidies for businesses to feed people cheap crappy chow and then subsidies for businesses to treat the resulting sicknesses. Too cozy for ethical and honest businesses to compete, too callous and destructive in human lives altogether.

[Ron Green]

1. 4 words:

High fructose corn syrup.

[Selatius]

2. This in a state with an industry that is all about looking good and being healthy.

Our society likes to dangle in front of you the good life, but on the other hand, it simply crushes you and leaves you in an unhappy existence whose purpose is largely to be an obedient consumer or a cog in a machine.

America. Turning active citizens into passive consumers since 1980.

[lindisfarne]

3. CA repubs are working on starving the poor (cutting off social support programs) so they're dealing

with the problem.
Do I honestly need a sarcasm tag? Unfortunately, I think I do, given some.
:sarcasm:

[azul]

6. Amazing how easily the obese can be demonized for political/business obfuscation.

Would you punish someone for bumping into poison oak and getting a rash? Would you punish someone for mistakenly eating salmonella bacteria and getting violently ill? Then why demonize those that are perhaps poisoned with endocrine disruptors? Why not spend the time and effort to make the determination?

This is a golden opportunity to create good jobs that reduce medical bills, clean up the habitat, and expand knowledge.
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Developmental programming of obesity in mammals

1. P. D. Taylor1 and
2. L. Poston1

Converging lines of evidence from epidemiological studies and animal models now indicate that the origins of obesity and related metabolic disorders lie not only in the interaction between genes and traditional adult risk factors, such as unbalanced diet and physical inactivity, but also in the interplay between genes and the embryonic, fetal and early postnatal environment. Whilst studies in man initially focused on the relationship between low birth weight and risk of adult obesity and metabolic syndrome, evidence is also growing to suggest that increased birth weight and/or adiposity at birth can also lead to increased risk for childhood and adult obesity. Hence, there appears to be increased risk of obesity at both ends of the birth weight spectrum. Animal models, including both under- and overnutrition in pregnancy and lactation lend increasing support to the developmental origins of obesity.

~snip

The demographic shift of populations towards a more obese phenotype in a relatively short period, just one or two generations, argues against a major genetic contribution in favour of environmental or epigenetic mechanisms. Recent evidence suggests that the prevention of childhood and adult obesity may need to begin even before conception (Magarey et al. 2003; Danielzik et al. 2004; Salsberry & Reagan, 2005). This review highlights the evidence that nutritional and environmental imbalances in utero and early postnatal life may make a significant contribution to the obesity epidemic.

http://ep.physoc.org/content/92/2/287.full?ck=nck

[RufusTFirefly]

4. Under the current system, unhealthy people mean big money for the health care industry

What's the incentive to change things?

[azul]

7. Our companion animals dying horribly of cancers and allergies

prematurely?

[Cleita]

5. Our junk food, which is what the poor are forced to eat, are full of

fillers like corn syrup and animal fats that help cause obesity. Just passing laws to clean up our commercial food supply would probably drop tons around the state before you even talk about exercise and dieting.