Obesity and health care
Last week, I was at the North Country Symposium in Canton, where community leaders were invited to speak to their colleagues.
David Acker, CEO of Canton-Potsdam Hospital, was given the floor for about 10 minutes. While he did touch on the likely effects of health care legislation on the region (“relationships will need to be restructured”, he saved the lion’s share of his time for one topic.
Obesity and nutrition.
Acker reminded us that St. Lawrence County ranks 59th of New York’s 62 counties in an index of health indicators, obesity high among them. He said at a time of deep budget cuts, treating the range of illnesses obese people deal with is pulling precious resources away from schools, other types of health care, roads, you name it…
Acker on obesity and health care
The scary thing is that from 1980 to 2000, even as warnings about being overweight grew into shrill cries of alarm, the number of obese Americans doubled. Only in the last few years has the curve leveled out.
Rising political star Marc Ambinder has a long-form, first-person narrative in this month’s Atlantic Monthly magazine about America’s largely losing battle against obesity, and its effect on our health care system:
Obese Americans spend about 42 percent more than healthy-weight people on medical care each year. Improper weight and diet strongly correlate with chronic diseases, which account for three-fourths of all health-care spending. Type 2 diabetes is one of the leading drivers of rising costs for Medicare patients, and 60 percent of cases result directly from weight gain. In short, even as the nation is convulsed by a political struggle to “reform” health care, no effort to contain its costs is likely to succeed if we can’t beat obesity.
What do you see in your neighborhood? Are you aware of nutrition/anti-obesity campaigns? Do you approve or find them offensive? What do you think of Michele Obama’s childhood Obesity Summit?
Fascinating artle at the NIH- about whether the harmful effects of obesity are a result of the stress obese people suffer from the stigma associated with obesity. The shame, stress and endocrine and metabolic changes that occur in people who routinely suffer from society's disapproval can't be overlooked. The following is an exceprt. with a link to the article. It is commonly believed that the pathophysiology of obesity arises from adiposity. In this paper, I forward a complementary explanation; this pathophysiology arises not from adiposity alone, but also from the psychological stress induced by the social stigma associated with being obese.In this study, I pursue novel lines of evidence to explore the possibility that obesity-associated stigma produces obesity-associated medical conditions. I also entertain alternative hypotheses that might explain the observed relationships.I forward four lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis that psychological stress plays a role in the adiposity-health association. First, body mass index (BMI) is a strong predictor of serological biomarkers of stress. Second, obesity and stress are linked to the same diseases. Third, body norms appear to be strong determinants of morbidity and mortality among obese persons; obese whites and women – the two groups most affected by weight-related stigma in surveys – disproportionately suffer from excess mortality. Finally, statistical models suggest that the desire to lose weight is an important driver of weight-related morbidity when BMI is held constant.Obese persons experience a high degree of stress, and this stress plausibly explains a portion of the BMI-health association. Thus, the obesity epidemic may, in part, be driven by social constructs surrounding body image norms.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2386473/
I see all this heading toward a government-run system where you need to get Obama's permission to go to McDonalds.
Anon 3:15, your comment is indicative of what is wrong with our country today. A serious health issue and what say you? A political jab at the President.
I agree, the Dems are already outlawing Trans fats and are taking on Salt. Next they will start taxing fast food and then the restaurant chains will need a bail out. How about you let me fend for my own health care needs and let me live the life I choose.
I have a saying:"If you wonder why Americans are so fat, it means you have never worked in a restaurant."Many people don't go a half an hour of the day without a soda, snack, or other junk. If you work in a restaurant you know obese people will order enough food for a family, just for one person. My favorite aspect of this is to compare the number of times Gluttony appears in the Bible versus homosexuality. The Bible is a little more clear about Gluttony. I always say a 600 pound man eating a bucket of chicken by himself would be more welcome in many local churches than two dudes holding hands.
Amazingly enough, none of these "studies" states anywhere except in v-e-r-r-y fine print that certain prescription medications, prescribed to both "normal weight" and "obese" patients, have as a side effect (drum roll, please…) elevated blood sugar levels! If you don't believe this, read the material that comes with blood pressure medicines, "statins", etc.Let's see — Type 2 diabetes in part being CAUSED by injudicious and unnecessary use of prescription drugs by doctors… there's an idea!Right now in society, obesity is the last politically correct form of bigotry. Where you would never label someone due to race, ethnic origin, sex, age, etc.; there is no end of nasty commentary, snickering remarks, and unfair blame for all the ills of the world for anyone who is not "normal" weight.
If you notice the pro-obese commentary here, it is searching for some kind of blame. Putting obese people in the same category as disabled or minorities is absurd. If blind people knew all they had to do in order to see again was eat at Subway for their meals, and take a walk every day, there wouldn't be too many blind people. If someone decided to be blind instead of eating at Subway, we wouldn't feel sorry for them. Is is a virus, medicine, or stress that makes people fat? Or is it the massive amounts of food that obese people eat? That is quite a mystery. A single serving of Pepsi used to be 8 ounces, now we see obese children walking around our villages slugging a 2-liter Mountain Dew like it is a single serving container. This is why we are fat.
My whole family has endocrine problems. My son has no thyroid, no panreas, and hasn't since childhood. My daughters have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. When my daughter was pregnant, she lost 45 pounds becasue her hormone levels changed. She gained 60 pounds the first two months she stopped breast feeding. I am diabetic, and if you think managing insulin (that saves your life and causes weight gain) with fitness levels, food, and thryroid issues isn't a full time job, youre wrong. I work full time, have a farm, and a full life. But I am aware of how my weight is regarded b everyone, and how my children bear stigma for medical conditions. I don't own a TV, don't eat junk food, and it doesn't seem particularly fair. However, I never get sick, hae the endurance of an ox, and the love of my family. So thumb your nose, and I understand you have no concept of what many of us deal with.
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