This is going to make me sound like a callous a-hole

[disneysteve]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...systems-money/

As much fun as it might be to scapegoat fat people and smokers, it's not reality.

First, I don't think there is anything fun about obesity or smoking.

Second, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that somewhere on the internet you could find an article like this, but you can also probably find articles that say Elvis is alive and the government is hiding aliens in New Mexico. This article is beyond ridiculous. To suggest that reducing obesity and smoking wouldn't reduce the burdens on the healthcare system is insane. I could post links to dozens if not hundreds of studies that support that. In addition, and I fully realize that this is a separate topic, obesity and smoking have vast non-healthcare impact and costs to our society as well.

[disneysteve]

We live in an environment were if you don't consciously swim against the stream every day, you will be overweight.

True. That's where EDUCATION and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY come in. And you can't have the second if you don't have the first. I've come to realize over the years that most of my patients truly have no idea what a healthy diet is. I lead an intensive diabetes education program and people are truly shocked when we talk about specific diet issues. When we teach them that a healthy meal is about 500 calories and then bring in sample meals and have them guess the calories, they don't have a clue. When they learn that 2 slices of pizza from the mall food court is 900 calories, they're surprised. When they see that a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke is over 1,300 calories, they can't believe it. It isn't hard at all to see why people are obese. The problem is that as a society, we eat the majority of our meals out today compared to years ago when most meals were prepared and eaten in the home. One thing that is starting to help is places putting nutritional information on the menus. At least that gives the customer the information needed to make better choices - the education part. Then it is up to him to do it - the personal responsibility part. Numerous times I have altered my order based on the nutritional info on the menus. I wish that were a federal law and every menu everywhere had that information.

[disneysteve]

It is sad that incentives are needed to be healthy. Having good health itself is an invaluable gift.

I agree, but the reality is that most people don't understand or grasp the connection between their lifestyle and their health. That message isn't getting through. And a lot of it is educational breakdown as per my previous post.

[stoney508]

I think the biggest problem is peoples perception on what is a healthy weight for someone not everyone is the same size wise. And just because someone is heavy there are plenty of people that are 250 that get out every day walk 5+ miles because of work and other forms or excersize that are not going to the gym to run or lift weights. These are considered healthy lifestyles as well as eating right. Now someone that sits at a desk and does nothing but go home but still eats decent but not healthy and only weighs 160-180 could have more wrong with him and affect the system more than the person weighing in over a hundred pounds over there weight.

I believe its more about activity muscle mass because in my opinion the 160-180 person is far more unhealthy than the 250.

[pretty cheap jewelry]

plenty of people that are 250 that get out every day walk 5+ miles because of work and other forms or excersize that are not going to the gym to run or lift weights

How to resolve that lots of studies say 'walking 20 min a day for 3 days a week' is equivalent to working out in the gym or running hard?

Thanks for a reasonably civilized discussion here.

About 2 weeks ago I volunteered at the Ventura Marathon. First held there. It was GIGANTIC. I was wonderfully impressed with the POSITIVE vibe. THOUSANDS participating in 5K, half marathon and full marathon.

Observation: EVERYONE was fit or getting fit. SUPPORTIVE 100% to each other.

Conclusion: The running culture is THE PLACE TO BE for good health.

[stoney508]

Sorry i've gotten way off topic.

Looking back at the first post I believe that the ACA is trying to bring the cost down for everyone not in the near term but in the long term due to supply and demand. More people that have it the less of a demand for it the lower the prices are. At that point and who knows how long it will take but when that happens there may be "discounts" for living healthy lifestyles.

But when you go into that you attach peoples personal freedoms of how they live there lives which no one person should have a say in what the person next to them do. People drink, smoke, eat and drug use its going to happen no matter what anyone says and when you try to limit that besides the drugs for obvious reasons you attach made america so great, the ability to have freedom to live our own lives.

I believe the ACA is meant to be a framework to be built on not looked at as this monster that so many people believe it is.

Points were made that the elderly and a shortage of doctors are big drains for increased costs and a lot of that can be resolved through possible additional programs that maybe the ACA can grow to accomodate to increase the amount of doctors and educate young people about the costs that are associated with getting older much like this forum are helping to prepare for retirement.


I do believe that some things like obesety have gotten the brunt of the argument here and I believe that there is a problem on how we label people fat/obese because there are sometime underlying problems when it comes down to it. I believe how we label is a factor as well because the BMI is a very old tool to calculate the health of someone based on there weight. I mean if you think about that (almost)every professional athlete would be considered overweight or obese because there BMI does not accomodate for muscle mass. That does not mean I agree with you that it is an endemic in our society today. This I believe is by our own doing also with the increase in technology but also because our country is so massive compared to say europe where our infrastructre cannot accomodate many of our citizens and our towns accomodate cars more instead of bike racks.

[hamchan]

https://www.healthyweight.net/5myths.pdf

http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth7.1.htm

I mean, really there are dozens of sources saying the same things, but I am not going to spend my entire break looking for them. Obesity being behind the health care crisis is a pervasive and popular myth, but it's still just a myth.

[ua_guy]

I believe the ACA is meant to be a framework to be built on not looked at as this monster that so many people believe it is.

Out of everything said so far, this. ^^^

Healthcare in general is an extremely complex topic. It takes time and lots of digging to understand. Maybe it shouldn't be that complex, but it is. ACA is a good start, and not a final answer. At the very least, it's A direction. The system will continue to evolve, but it must be allowed to do so, in my opinion. That means giving it time to run as approved, and then making changes later through the routine legislative process so that it continues to serve a need and be of value.

[dojo]

Nika, you nailed the food problem well. I am shocked to see how much unhealthy food is advertised to be good for a 'healthy' diet. Starting from baby food (which is so full of 'other' things than what's needed) and getting to the food we buy for ourselves, as adults.

Since I'm pregnant and we're always focused on eating healthy, I started looking at the labels even more. I know it's impossible to live in a 'bubble wrap' and eat only organic and great food, but I did make an effort to try and see what I'm buying. Here in Europe, they're being forced to put everything on the label (all ingredients), even if the manufacturers to try to give some of the 'chemicals' names that wouldn't have you think there's something wrong.

The yoghurt we're supposed to give our children is already filled with 'stuff'. I mean for this all you need is milk and a bacteria culture. THAT'S ALL. No Xantan, no Guar gum, no wheat or god knows what they're putting there. Let's not get to the fruit youghurts, I think they have as much natural fruit as the gasoline we use for our cars

And yet, unless we're consciously looking at labels and doing our own researches, we're duped into thinking this and that are good. And they're not.

As far as the portions are in restaurants, they're appalling. You can feed a family from a one person meal and the calorie content in many cases can even double the needed intake for another day. It's no wonder people do struggle with weight, when a single meal covers them (from a calorie stand point) for 2 days.