The bottom line of the Nature article – and the part that has generated so much controversy – is the assertion by the authors that refined sugar is just as “toxic” to public health as alcohol and tobacco and should similarly be regulated by the government.

Now think about that for a minute.  Does that make sense?  So what’s next, “Food Nazis” patrolling the streets in brown shirts looking for people feeding a cookie to their kids and hauling them off to the office of the local ATS (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Sugar <grin>) ?

Can you really “regulate” good health?  Can you legally force people to avoid the things they like to eat but should be avoiding?

Yes, I’m aware of the statistics.  According to the CDC, more than a third of the US population over the age of 20 is obese.  More than a third!  And yes, I know that there’s a strong link between obesity and sugar.  And true, obesity-related illnesses cost us $116 Billion per year and will consume 21% of ALL healthcare costs by 2018 (source:  USA Today).

But still, can good health be regulated?  Regulation really hasn’t worked for either alcohol (estimated $45.5 Billion in healthcare costs) or tobacco (estimated healthcare cost:  $97 Billion) so what makes people think it will work for sugar?

Where does self reliance enter into the picture?  Don’t we have a right to choose what we eat and don’t eat?  Well, here’s where the picture gets fuzzy once again.

The CBS article quoted a prepared statement from the Sugar Association (OK, why there’s an association for sugar in the first place is anyone’s guess but in today’s world, everybody’s got their own lobby group).  In it, a spokesperson said:

“We are confident that the American people are perfectly capable of choosing what foods to eat without stark regulations and unreasonable bans imposed upon them.”

Actually, that would be true IF they didn’t already put sugar into just about everything we eat – from breakfast cereal to spaghetti sauce.  If it’s a “processed” food, it’s got sugar.  You’ll even find sugar in some canned vegetables (I looked in my pantry and found sugar listed on cans of creamed corn, peas & carrots, and in ranch-style pinto beans).

So if sugar is being added to all the foods we eat, then where’s the choice?

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach andPersonal Fitness Trainer (NESTA)

P.S.  Be sure to get my latest Fitness Blueprint called “Little Things That Improve Your Health.”  This ebook is packed with loads of helpful information on how to build a better body and you can get it FREE – no email, no cookies, no catch.  Download and enjoy!

Email Me:  Hiram Perez   

Technorati Tags: sugar, obesity, weight loss, diet, healthcare, regulation, toxic, health, alcohol, tobacco

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The study found that “obesity had a larger effect on disease, while smoking had a greater impact on deaths.” Translation?  Being obese leaves you wide open to a large number of diseases such as heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, kidney disease, degenerative joint diseases, and on and on.  Smoking, on the other hand, tends to lead to a narrower group of diseases, mainly forms of cancer.

The bottom line is that your future quality of life, your ability to move around and do what you want, will be (not “can be” but “will be”) significantly reduced if you’re obese or if you’re a smoker.  God help if you’re both because you’ve got a “double whammy” working against you.

From 1993 to 2008, the study noted, the number of adult smokers in America DEcreased 18.5%, thanks to the many anti-smoking campaigns and quit-smoking programs and treatments that have been implemented over that same time period.  However, the proportion of Americans in the obese category over the same number of years INcreased by 85%!  That’s a huge (no pun intended) increase.

You want to know why healthcare in this country is so expensive? There’s a big part of it right there – the treatment of obesity-related diseases.  Remember the study conclusion that “obesity had a larger effect on disease?”  This tells you that obesity-related diseases tend to put you in the hospital for much longer periods of time and the treatments are much longer in duration.

But even if you forget the cost to our healthcare system (such as it is) to being treated for weight-related Type 2 diabetes, for example, for the rest of your life, imagine what that does to your lifestyle.  Imagine what having to go for treatments or having to take injections every couple of days does to your ability to enjoy life.

I watched my late uncle’s weight-related diabetes destroy his kidneys, and eventually take his life, but not before doctors had to amputate his feet and he had to undergo dialysis every 3 days.  His life had very little “quality” at the end.

By the way, according to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC):

The estimated economic cost of diabetes in 2007 was $174 billion. Of this amount, $116 billion was due to direct medical costs and $58 billion due to indirect costs such as lost workdays, restricted activity, and disability due to diabetes. People with diagnosed diabetes incur average expenditures of $11,744 per year, of which $6,649 is attributed to diabetes. People with diagnosed diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures that are approximately 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes. Approximately $1 of  $5 health care dollars in the United States is spent caring for someone with diagnosed diabetes, while approximately $1 of $10 health care dollars is attributed to diabetes.

It’s been estimated that obesity can easily shorten your expected life span by 9 months or more.  That’s almost an entire year.  But that’s just your “expected life span.”  Being obese can reduce your quality of life to a point that living longer doesn’t seem like a good idea anyway.

Did you get that last sentence?  Did it sink in?  Being overweight can make you so disease-ridden that you don’t care whether you live any longer or not.  How sad is that?  Can you imagine what that does to your loved ones?

Well, here’s the good part.  The good news is that you can change all of that.  If you smoke, you can quit.  If you’re obese, you can lose the weight.  It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick but you can do it.  All you have to do in order to start is to decide you need to change, and then take each day an hour at a time.

The improved quality of life you receive will be well worth the effort.  You’ll not only benefit yourself, think of how it will affect your entire family.  They’ll see you improving and they’ll want to improve as well.  You’ll all end up supporting each other, step by step.

Take the first step right now.  Decide to change your life.  It will be the best decision you make.

Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach andPersonal Fitness Trainer (NESTA)

P.S.  Be sure to get my latest Fitness Blueprint called “Little Things That Improve Your Health.”  This ebook is packed with loads of helpful information on how to build a better body and you can get it FREE – no email, no cookies, no catch.  Download and enjoy!

Technorati Tags: obesity, smoking, quit, overweight, diabetes, nih, cdc, healthcare, disease, quality of life, bmi

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Now this is a fitness and health site, not a political one, so I really don’t want to get into the many, many arguments for and against the various proposals that have been promoted and discussed by both sides of the political aisle.  However, I do want to bring up one important point:  we really cannot afford to sit around and do nothing.

The reason why is summed up in a recent report titled, “Health Reform: The Cost of Failure” by The Urban Institute, a bipartisan think tank that studies social issues.  Here’s what it says…

The May 2009 study looked at what would happen to trends in health coverage and costs if healthcare reforms are not enacted, in other words, if we do nothing.  It’s not a pretty picture.

Using a computer simulation model, the Urban Institute looked at the current trends in insurance coverage and health costs and projected them out 10 years in the future for each of the 50 states.  Here’s a summary of what they found:

• There should be no surprise that of all income levels affected, the middle-class would be hardest hit with individual and family out-of-pocket costs increasing by more than 35%.
• In 29 states, the number of people without insurance would increase by more than 30%.  All told, the number of uninsured Americans would reach 65.7 million.
• Businesses would see their premiums continue to increase with it more than doubling in 27 states.
• Every state would see a smaller share of it’s population with employer-sponsored insurance.  (Why is that?  See the previous bullet point.)
• Every state would see its Medicare/CHIP spending rise by more than 75% by 2019 with half the states facing increases of more than 100%.
• The amount of uncompensated care – this is the cost of treating people with no health insurance and a cost that we ALL pay for in one way or another – would more than double in 45 states.

Like I said, it’s not a pretty picture, and in my opinion, a big reason for getting some sort of reform passed.  Again, I don’t want to debate the specific proposals that have been put on the table.  I just want to re-enforce the point that we can’t afford to do nothing.

As a small business owner, I’ve personally seen the cost of providing medical insurance for our employees go up significantly over the past 3 years.  At first, our premiums went up around 10% from the previous year (no real change in the number of employees or number of claims).  Now, our premiums have jumped 35% from the previous year – again with no real change in the number of employees or in the number of claims.

“No problem, you say.  All you have to do is to pass that additional cost to your customers, right?” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way – not in the middle of a recession.  There’s too much competition, many of which don’t provide any insurance at all for their employees, willing to do the same job for less.  It doesn’t take you long to realize that things have got to change.

No matter which way your political beliefs lean, no matter which news network you watch, no matter what the radio talk show hosts say, the way we insure and pay for healthcare has simply got to change.

Again, you can download the Urban Institute’s report here.

Hiram
The Balanced Health Guy

Technorati Tags: healthcare, insurance, medical, hospital, reform, political, politics, health

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