As America's waistline expands, costs soar

[FarCenter]

U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

The nation's rising rate of obesity has been well-chronicled. But businesses, governments and individuals are only now coming to grips with the costs of those extra pounds, many of which are even greater than believed only a few years ago: The additional medical spending due to obesity is double previous estimates and exceeds even those of smoking, a new study shows.

Many of those costs have dollar signs in front of them, such as the higher health insurance premiums everyone pays to cover those extra medical costs. Other changes, often cost-neutral, are coming to the built environment in the form of wider seats in public places from sports stadiums to bus stops.

The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese, could become the epidemic's second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-obesity-idUSBRE83T0C820120430

[dkf]

1. Wow the ACA lets employers charge 30% to 50% more to obese people?

[FarCenter]

3. It seems like too little

Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending, especially for hospitalizations and prescription drugs, Cawley and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University reported in January in the Journal of Health Economics. Obese women account for an extra $3,613 a year. Using data from 9,852 men (average BMI: 28) and 13,837 women (average BMI: 27) ages 20 to 64, among whom 28 percent were obese, the researchers found even higher costs among the uninsured: annual medical spending for an obese person was $3,271 compared with $512 for the non-obese.

[JNelson6563]

2. This is very important.

We really need to try and take control of our own health. We need to consume less, move more and make better choices.

Julie

[wendylaroux]

4. I agree

trying to do that now.It would be awesome just to feel good again.

[JNelson6563]

11. I've been working on it these days too!

With spring here in northern MI it's easier to get out and walk!

Julie

[surrealAmerican]

5. ... and it's a problem we need to address ...

... as a community. Fining and shaming the obese doesn't really help. We need to be building walkable towns, regulating our food supply, providing appropriate health care, and allowing enough free time for people to cook their own food and exercise.

[JNelson6563]

10. I agree completely.

But people need to be honest with themselves too. I know a lot of people who don't go for walks or anything active (in a very walkable community) because they are so very busy. But I know their lives well enough to know that right after work it's to the couch or computer chair and there they stay til bedtime. Stuff like that. We all can do such things for ourselves. I'm as guilty as anyone~though I am thin I am getting terribly soft. I have been pushing myself to get out there and walk and other activities (bought a bike for $20 from a local fundraiser) and it's not easy but it is rewarding. Just so you know I'm not some physical fitness guru throwing rocks from a platform of perfect example. I know I need to get moving if I want to feel better. Also, I've been eating much less meat and more rice, beans, veggies. Not only healthier but cheaper.

Julie

[Carolina]

12. While I agree

I think another factor is what agribusiness practices have done to the food we consume. Adulterants, etc. play a role.

Another thing is the declining middle class so that many people have to work longer hours at 2 or more shift jobs that don't facilitate good eating practices or time out for exercise. It's eating on the run, eating highly processed or fast food, and being too exhausted when all is said and done.

Frankly, it's another thing I blame Republicans for!

[KurtNYC]

6. Life expectancy is dropping

therefore fewer will live long enough to collect Social Security (meaning that many people will pay in but never collect), but this shouldn't be a debate about cost vs benefits.

I was troubled by this phrase: "costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese," as it seeks to divide us and blame many who are doing their best with the choices available to them. We are all essentially brain-washed to consume more of EVERYTHING. Advertising is not art -- it is science. Advertisers monitor cause and effect and look for the maximum impact per dollar. In other words, advertising works.

We are all in this mess together.

[FarCenter]

7. It appears that obese people don't die sooner -- they just require a lot more medical care

For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer's care, and other pricey items.

That's what happens to smokers. While they do incur higher medical costs than nonsmokers in any given year, their lifetime drain on public and private dollars is less because they die sooner. "Smokers die early enough that they save Social Security, private pensions, and Medicare" trillions of dollars, said Duke's Finkelstein. "But mortality isn't that much higher among the obese."

Beta blockers for heart disease, diabetes drugs, and other treatments are keeping the obese alive longer, with the result that they incur astronomically high medical expenses in old age just like their slimmer peers.

[liberalhistorian]

8. So why don't we just

quarantine anyone over a certain weight, round them up and put them on their own deserted, isolated island, away from the rest of us "decent" folk!

("can't find the sarcasm thingie if anyone is sarcasm-challenged)

[wendylaroux]

15. sarcasm taken

but honestly some people,okay me,feel addicted to the worse food there is,fast food,also cheap and quick. I swear sometimes I can bite into a big mac and feel such pleasure. I know,it's gross,fattening,and made of god knows what. Can I sue Mcdonalds? I swear there is something in fast food that is addicting.

[FarCenter]

16. Sugar Addiction

Is sugar toxic? This was the question posed by CBS News program 60 Minutes last Sunday. The answer was a resounding “yes.” And not only is sugar toxic, it is also addictive according to the experts interviewed for the segment. I have been interested in food addiction for some time now and it seems that the popular media is finally taking notice of this concept. The program featured Eric Stice, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the Oregon Research Institute who has used fMRI scans to conclude that sugar activates the same brain regions that are activated when a person consumes drugs like cocaine. In addition, he found that heavy users of sugar develop tolerance (needing more and more to feel the same effect), which is a symptom of substance dependence. Nora Volkow, M.D., a psychiatrist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has done similar research using brain imaging techniques to show similarities between the brains of people who are obese and people who abuse drugs and alcohol. Nicole Avena, Ph.D., a psychologist at Princeton University, was even able to induce sugar dependency in rats. In my opinion, the research is convincing that sugar and other foods have an addictive quality. The Lay’s potato chip advertising execs were really onto something when they developed their “betcha can’t eat just one” slogan in the 1950s. Talk about ahead of their time!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/eating-mindfully/201204/sugar-addiction

Fat and salt are addictive as well.

Carmel buttered salted popcorn balls are the ideal food.

[wendylaroux]

17. Thank you for that?

Terrible news for so many. It seems like almost everyone is addicted to something unhealthy. Good grief. Ok then,got my work cut out for me.

[KurtNYC]

9. By your quote: "mortality...higher among the obese." Obese Americans die sooner.

64% of the US is obese so they are the majority. On average Americans are obese and the average life expectancy in the US is dropping.

Obesity in children may pave the way to an early grave, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds.

The study, published Wednesday, followed nearly 5,000 American Indian children from childhood to middle age and found that those who were obese as children were more than twice as likely to die from disease before the age of 55.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/childhood-obesity-makes-early-grave/story?id=9796264#.T564l1KYvRQ

Of course people who have health issues "require a lot more medical care" than healthy people but, in the case of obesity, we are talking about 64% of us. I am not going to pretend that these aren't family and friends and other people we love.

[FarCenter]

13. That was a study of Pima indian children and may not be representative of the national population

They had a death rate twice the national average.

I do think that there is some shortening of life, but not to the extent as smokers. A neighbor of my parents who was quite heavy lived to an advanced age, although it required multiple hospitalizations to amputate the gangreous parts.

[4th law of robotics]

14. "They had a death rate twice the national average."

200%?

/kidding