Obesity & the Economy

I get links to health-related issues at work, today was a good one 

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090122/hl_nm/us_usa_obesity

Info you may have already heard before...but still worth discussing.

SOME DAY they will realize what we all know, we are worth more alive to them than what they save when we die. We are NOT seen as assets rather liabilities right now. By extending our lives by 10-20 years they will collect more money in the long run.

The only issue I have with the article is it states it would cost insurance companies 10-20K for a WLS. Fact is they pay less than 5K and less than 3 in most cases the costs would be recovered much faster

Right!!

I have a really hard time with the idea of health care being in the business of making money.  The bottom line should be based on the health and longevity of a person and NOT on profits!!!

If I am not mistaken, I believe that Mississippi is the fattest state in the US.  I can understand why that is, they eat more fried foods, gravies, among other things.  Don't get me wrong, that food is great, tastes great, been there eaten it before, but it is a way of life there.  Just as California is one of the leanest states, well maybe not any longer.  There are so many avenues as to why people are overweight. To generically say it's because we eat too much is so wrong.  I have a sister thin as a rail, I had 4 aunts, that looked like I did before surgery.  It's generic, it the lifestyles we live among other things that cause these problems.  Yes it is sad that insurance companies don't pay for surgeries, it is even sadder that they limit us to the type of surgery that we want.  Most companies only pay for RNY and Lapband.  One thing that I have not seen discussed here is trying to obtain health insurance.  I have tried more than once to get insurance and as soon as they find out I had gastric bypass, I am told they can't cover me.  Insurance companies are all for profit, you don't see them asking the government to be bailed out!

My 2 cents

Diane

This bothers me on a level that I can't even begin to explain.  I guess I didn't realize that it was a problem until coming to OH and hearing about what so many people go through to get approval for surgery.  Obtaining my RNY seemed so easy, I was the one who had to be talked into it at first.  One of the biggest epidemics this country is facing right now is childhood obesity, statistics say that this is the first generation of children who will likely not live as long as their parents, that is a frightening statistic and yet insurance companies still don't see the value of covering all forms of WLS ... so very frustrating!!!!
Thanks for posting this Monica!

I'm 7 months out and have just been reading a few books on food, how it is produced, and what to eat, and how much of the nutrition advice given out by the government since the 1970s has actually made us fatter and less healthy.

So it's a little galling to read about the proposed bill in Miss. to ban obese people from eating in restaurants. Um, people still need to eat, even if they are heavy. After learning, though, how there are so many powerful food lobbies in the US who benefit when we buy, say, processed foods with (suspect) health claims on it (like Fritos, and no, I'm not making this up), the sad state of the country's waistline as evidenced in articles like this one make me want to cry.

Yeah, I know that I wasn't particularly active when I was obese. But I also know that I tried to do the best I could with the limited information I had about nutrition (which was that I should stay away from fat and eat high-carbs--which turned out for me and my specific medical situation--which was undiagnosed at the time, to be some of the worst advice possible as it made me get much fatter!)

So, it just makes me sad--so many people are suffering from bad health due to misinformation, and a food environment/larger food culture that makes it really hard to make good food choices.

I am very grateful to have had this surgery as it is helping me start to feel like the "me" that was buried under the fat girl is able to emerge. I hope that others have the same chance, or better yet, that food awareness in the US would somehow get better so that people would be able to prevent obesity more often.