Nearly 10 percent of health spending for obesity

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32170526/ns/health-health_care/

WASHINGTON - Obesity's not just dangerous, it's expensive. New research shows medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for an obese person than someone who's normal weight.

Overall obesity-related health spending reaches $147 billion, double what it was nearly a decade ago, says the study published Monday by the journal Health Affairs.

Health economists have long warned that obesity is a driving force behind the rise in health spending. For example, diabetes costs the nation $190 billion a year to treat, and excess weight is the single biggest risk factor for developing diabetes. Moreover, obese diabetics are the hardest to treat, with higher rates of foot ulcers and amputations, among other things.

"Health care costs are dramatically higher for people who are obese and it doesn't have to be that way," said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, who wasn't involved in the new research.

[Oregone]

1. We do not need to ration health care to these people!

We need to ration food.

:rofl:

Ok. That was inappropriate. I apologize for any I offended.

[WeDidIt]

2. Struggle with teh problem and then get back to me on the jokes.

:eyes:

[Raven]

3. Gee, not funny. You obviously knew it was unappropriate, why post it?

[Oregone]

7. I can't help myself. Im sorta like Edwards

[Tarc]

10. I laughed

Eat less.
Move more.

There's not much else to it. These people with preventable issues need to stop being such a huge drain on the health care system. Same goes for smokers.

[KittyWampus]

11. Not just eat LESS. It's eat different.

just saying.

[Scout]

30. and it isn't necessarily eat less or eat different....

just saying.

[Tarc]

42. Not really

Portion size is a large part of the problem.

[WeDidIt]

13. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about

Struggle with the issue for real and get back to me.

I was a smoker (and not obese) for 25 years. I gave up smoking. I am now obese. It was easier to give up smoking than it is to control my weight.

[Tarc]

41. Allow me to express a moment of pity for you

...

[CBHagman]

16. Funny you should say that.

That's exactly what the doctor and the nurses (Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful nurses! Yay, nurses!) told me.

It worked. Oh, and they covered the "eat different" part too, with specifics.

[redqueen]

18. And people who drink, and ride motorcycles, and skydive, and rockclimb... etc.

[Juche]

31. Go prove your theory then

Go write to the NIH and tell them to gather 100,000 americans from all walks of life. high school dropouts, PhDs, men, women, old, young, tall, short, rich, poor. And tell the NIH to give those 100,000 people your advice of 'eat less, move more, theres not much else too it'.

And tell the NIH to keep tabs for 10 years to see how many of those 100,000 people lose large amounts of weight and keep it off. When the failure rate is at least 98%, get back to us.

[Coyote_Bandit]

17. Ummmm......

Gone. Just gone.

[hedgehog]

4. What if the current rise in obesity is really not a matter of will power?

What if it's something wrong with our food, or an autoimmune disease triggered by all the chemicals in our environment? Is it only coincidence for example, that the rise in obesity parallels the introduction of chemistry based farming? What about all the petro-chemicals that surround us, that imitate the actions of hormones? What if, as some have suggested, obesity follows certain viral infections?

If so, what if we realize this on an unconscious level?

Is the hatred and disgust expressed toward the obese a recognition that this is a disease and not a lack of will power? Whenever there is an endemic disease, there is an effort by the healthy to separate themselves from the sick, to say that I am immune because I do this or I don't do that, that my virtuous actions will protect me.

[Igel]

50. And what if it's because little aliens sneak into our bedrooms

while we sleep and implant their fat onto our bottoms?

Mostly it's too many calories and not doing things to burn them off. We sit more, we watch more things on screens in front of ourselves, as we eat and drink stuff with more fat and sugar. As a species, we're genetically engineered to like fat and sugar.

Then there are goofy things. Your diet while pregnant can influence your kid's tastes, and widespread hunger can lead to kids whose bodies try to conserve energy and store it as fat.

If you do purely mental work you don't expend nearly the number of calories you would doing physical labor, but your response is to eat. Exertion, mental or physical, triggers more eating. (Of course, mental work typically entails resting on your behind.)

It's not an accident that the rise in obesity parallels the growth of "chemistry-based" farming. It's made food a smaller portion of our budgets, even as we buy more food (and waste more food) per person. Cheap food = more food = more fat.

It's not always true--there are those who do suffer from endocrine problems and those whose metabolism is set to "pack on fat". But neither is the norm.

[CBHagman]

5. I do think we are going to have a diabetes crisis in the U.S.

The real tragedy there is that diabetes can lead to multiple long-term problems -- with the heart, with the eyes, with the extremities.

Of course the problem itself must be addressed on multiple levels -- first a regimen for anyone who has been diagnosed with the disease or is on the verge of developing it, and then prevention for anyone who falls outside the diabetic category.

[Kalyke]

9. High Fructose Corn Syrup and preservatives.

It's harder to eat healthy in rough economic times because real fruits, veggies and meats are so much more expensive than the processed stuff.

I have lost 10 pounds in a month by just not eating processed foods... and I was struggling for two years to lose just a measly 20 pounds I gained after pregnancy.

No more bread with the HFCS in it - I'll spend a bit extra on the breads without it. I buy TONS of veg and fruit, a small snippet of meat and very little from the "aisles in the middle" (that's where all the processed food is - the healthy stuff surrounds the exterior walls in nearly every grocery store).

Just stay out of the middle, if you can afford it.

[CBHagman]

14. But there are multiple factors.

From what I can tell it is not only what we eat but how we eat, what we shop for (and where), and how we conduct our days. The tendency towards sedentary lifestyles is a factor, and so is the lack of access to healthy food (especially in underdeserved areas, among the poor in general, etc.).

Frankly, when I was in my teens and twenties, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I noticed that my American classmates sometimes carried extra weight but were by no means generally inclined towards being heavy, and our European counterparts were, for the most part, thinner than the Americans. In fact I can count on the fingers of one hand the young Europeans I met, taught or attended classes with who were overweight. I just didn't see it.

Nowadays I'll walk through the supermarket or ride public transport or go to a public place and I'll see lots of young people with spare tires, and not all of them are poor.

[shanti]

43. going to?

it's been here for some time now. probably since the explosion of HFCS back in the early 80's. remember "new coke"? THAT was the switch from cane sugar to HFCS. it exploded after that i seem to recall.

[mnhtnbb]

6. Obesity is a risk factor for a lot of diseases

People who are overweight or obese have a greater chance of developing high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol or other lipid disorders, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers, and even a small weight loss (just 10 percent of your current weight) will help to lower your risk of developing those diseases.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/risk.htm

How to assess your risk at the above link

[abumbyanyothername]

8. If we address obesity what will become of

the "food" companies and let us not forget, the advertising companies. And if the advertisers fall, can the media and content companies be far behind.

It takes a lot of work to convince people to eat stuff that is not food. However, like cigarettes (which are universally rejected by the human body on the first try), once the substances can be forced in, they create an addictive effect.

[Silver Swan]

12. Just because a person is fat

Doesn't mean all his health problems are obesity related. It seems that whatever ails a fat person is blamed on fat. However, I don't think there is any disease that is found only in fat people.

[Lex]

21. You're right. A real life example: I have 2 cousins. One has high blood pressure

and the doctor says it's due to her weight (she's a little above her ideal BMI). The other is normal weight and has high blood pressure and the doctor says it's probably "genetic."

I say the doctor just guesses it's the weight in the first instance, but he doesn't know.

Makes me wonder what percentage of maladies get attributed to being overweight just because the person is overweight. (Not that I think being overweight is perfectly fine, but I question the numbers on what is attributed to it.)

[Lance_Boyle]

34. obesity = disease found only in fat people. n/t

[soleft]

15. This is like saying nausea and hair loss is a huge cost to the health care industry

No - it's the cancer.

People keep wanting to talk about obesity and weight and weight loss.

Until people start talking about the underlying behaviorial issues as the primary focus - poverty, poor eating habits, and sedentary lifestyle - nothing will ever change. People will keep going on yo yo diets, screw up their motabolism and escaserbate the problems.

I know women who doctors would label obese who could run marathons and have perfect lab numbers. I know skinny women who have high blood pressure and horrendous cholesteral.

You cannot determine a person's health by their weight. It's whether or not you live a healthy lifestyle and you have to dig a lot deeper than a layer of fat on someone's hips to to make that determination.

[redqueen]

20. I applaud you for trying...

:applause:

[soleft]

45. I applaude your applause!

:thumbsup:

[steelmania75]

19. We need to get the FDA to remove high fructose corn syrup from our food

It's killing us, literally, and financially.

[Bill McBlueState]

22. I suspect many people think it's higher

My right-wing in-laws would have you believe that the American health care crisis would go away if we all just ate better. It looks like better diets would shave at most 10% off the total cost of health care, helping a little but not too much.

[pipoman]

23. This makes me think I am Nostradamus ...

as the militant movement over smoking began I predicted as soon as sufficient headway toward smoking had firm public support, next would be obesity...fatties, prepare yourself for becoming the target of the health warriors. Soon you will be required to step on a scale before you enter public buildings, required to use separate doors, required to sit in special fat sections in restaurants where the menu is different, required to only buy specially marked products in the grocery, required to keep and maintain proof of membership at health centers and proof of participation in an exercise regimen...welcome to the world of the outcasts, we smokers welcome you. Next up? Alcohol users...we smokers and fatties will keep a spot for you in our special banished place..(that is if the obese loose some weight)..

[Juche]

29. Second hand obesity isn't really a health risk

Because of that I do not see those draconian measures since obesity doesn't directly harm those near him/her. The worst I think will happen is taxes on junk food.

[pipoman]

35. But you see, nor does smoking out of doors

it merely looks bad and smells to some people. The propagandists will have you believe that '2nd hand smoke' is a health issue even outside while standing next to a freeway. The truth? If 4 chain smokers sat in a closed car all day and chain smoked, the worst reaction would be red eyes and maybe some congestion, OTOH if those same people sat in a car that was running with the exhaust piped into the cab they would all be dead within an hour. Now, I ask, how dangerous is smoking out of doors for non smokers?

Nobody wants to look at fat people and everyone knows fat people smell bad, so there you go...

[The Straight Story]

47. Sure it is

obese people use up more fuel, which pollutes more and causes more climate change. They also cause us to spend more on health care as noted - which also means work effort is expended (more electricity used, chemicals, etc) which uses up the planet's resources...and so on.

all the above harm others :) so it is the same effect as smoking in a bar, just not as easy to see.....

The logical conclusion of a nanny state is fascism in the end - where the few will control the many for the benefit of 'all', a new pope to save us from our sins.

[RagAss]

55. If second hand smoke was as bad as they said ... the baby boom generation would

already be dead. Our parents smoked in the house, the car...hell.... everywhere but church.

[Art_from_Ark]

59. Maybe your parents smoked in the house, car, etc.,

but my house was smoke-free. The only place I was exposed to tobacco smoke on a regular basis was at, of all places, Sunday School, where the teacher smoked like a chimney and all I could think about was when was that class going to end.

Also, take a look at the boomer generation now-- nearly everyone seems to be on some sort of medication or another. Based on my own experience, I can easily imagine that a lot of boomers' health issues can be traced back to constant exposure to tobacco smoke.

[RagAss]

54. Yup....what you said.

[hunter]

24. Blaming the victim is the traditional God Bless American response.

Don't look at our fucked up health industry, don't look at our fucked up food supply, don't look at the stinking corruption of our government.

See that overweight guy over there? It's his fault!!!

[nolabels]

36. By your equation it is 25% his fault but since he the weak link ...........

and has less of a chance to defend his position we will blame him. Many of us fight the temptations, some are born to be naturally slim and others must just fight the cravings from something learned before they knew that they have some kind of choice in it. But no doubt there is good helping of blame to go around. Keeping people plump, dependent and docile is a benefit to the establishment and the corporations that wish to prop it up.

[Juche]

25. The only effective cure for obesity is surgery

Since obesity implies being 20% over a BMI of 25, only surgery can get people to lose that much weight and keep it off permanently. There are no peer reviewed, double blind studies showing lifestyle changes or current medications can help people lose 20% of their weight and keep it off.

So yeah, it is a problem. But right now we don't really have the tools to change it.

[mnhtnbb]

39. That's not true. Lots and lots of people lose 50-100 or more pounds

and are able to keep it off. The key, though, is understanding why they ate and changing what/how much they eat.

I can't believe I'm actually recommending something Duke, but here you go:

http://www.dukediet.com/publicsite/index.aspx

[soleft]

46. Bullshit

[Juche]

49. Wow, I'm convinced

I wasn't before because I was basing my opinions on those 'litist scientific studies, but now that I've seen your condescending non-argument, I realize I am wrong.

Go find me a scientific study where anything short of surgery works as a long term cure for obesity for the majority of people who try it.

[soleft]

53. There is no cure for obesity

[Juche]

56. surgery is an effective treatment

In the sense that people can lose over half of their excess weight and keep it off for 5-10 years or more. However it is the only thing that seems to work long term.

[soleft]

58. I know three women who have had the surgery

One of them lost some weight, and is now overfeeding her three year old daughter - it's like she's eating vicariously through her.

One hasn't lost any weight and is very disappointed.

One is fifty pounds heavier than she was before the surgery.

Send me a link to your studies, I'd be interested to see them.

[abumbyanyothername]

57. How can you do a double blind lifestyle change study?

I recommend regular fasting for everyone, but not many do it.

I know that most of my health problems resulted from putting too much stuff into my body. Not from not enough.

The sickest I have been in two years (since I did a huge lifestyle change) was an earache that lasted somewhere between 18 and 36 hours.

In my opinion, the human body has an amazing, but not unlimited, capacity to eliminate toxins.

[Vinca]

26. Does that mean 90% is spent on thin people?

[Scout]

28. yup, thin people cost too much!!! n/t

[Horse with no Name]

27. Yet treatment for obesity is almost ALWAYS an exclusion in the health insurance policies

Wonder why that is?
I would almost bet that the majority of obese people at some point (because of disability or debility) fall off of the insurance rolls until Medicare picks them up.
In other words...the system is designed to punish these people without helping them.
And studies like this?
They are designed to make non-obese people hate obese people for costing more on their insurance.
Very distasteful.

[rucky]

40. Smoking cessation, too.

The health insurance industry has no interest in treating the root causes - of anything - including the crisis they've manufactured.

[sutz12]

32. And 30% goes to overhead...

:shrug:

Hey, I'm all for helping the obese. Yes, it is getting close to crisis mode. Let's do all of that.

But the big bucks in savings is on Wall Street and executive salaries.

This is a distraction.

[ecstatic]

33. I hope a miracle pill is found soon!

That might be the only way to get things under control.

[Xicano]

37. Maybe its all that crap they allow to be put into our food?

It seems to me the more crappy foods they've dumped into the market the more problems of obesity and diabetes. You think maybe there's a correlation?

I don't see people as the problem, I see corporations as the problem.

[Ron Green]

38. It's all about slavery and addiction that exist when the Market is unfettered.

Television, drive-in shopping, high fructose corn syrup, Big Tobacco, and almost every other trapping of modern American life are planned, owned and operated by a Free Market that cares not a bit for people and their struggle with making better decisions, but rather seeks to keep the temptations of short-term pain relief (see all of the above) cheap and handy.

I wish the people who shout "Nanny state!" would understand that without government controls on the marketplace, we'll live in a third world of hurt.

[Hannah Bell]

44. phony stats. supposedly 15% of spending is on smokers = 25% on obese + smokers.

but wait, supposedly 30% of spending is on elderly in the last year of life.

ok, we're up to 55%, got some more bogus stats?

on edit: 30% for insurers - so far, that leaves 15% for non-obese, non-smoking non-elderly non-insurers, i.e. the majority of the population.

Bo-gus....

[The Straight Story]

48. I think they are all bogus and put there by special interest groups

For example, I get the flu, see my doc. Questionnaire asks doctor "Does patient smoke?" he checks yes they use that stat to say my illness was smoking related. And if I am overweight as well then some other group can map back that same visit to obesity.

[CNHander]

51. We won't be able to legislate away the problem

Leaving it to the market is an even worse idea, because the free market is what enabled this obesity epidemic in the first place. Although there are some things the government can do to reduce obesity, like limiting candy dispensers in public schools and allocating more funds to cafeterias, the real change will have to come from elsewhere.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

52. I've had an autoimmune disease since 1966.

My thyroid died in 1966. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease and the most common cause of low thyroid.

There are millions of people who have a low or dead thyroid and their doctors tell them it's depression, not their hormones.

I've argued with several prominent endocrinologists to get the right kind of thyroid (ARMOUR, from the slaughterhouse -- cheap stuff) and the right amount.


www.stopthethyroidmadness.com