The obesity epidemic has taken more than a toll on America’s health; the current boom in weight gain has fueled a drastic increase in the amount spent treating diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and other weight-related illnesses, a study found.
In fact, since 1987, private health insurance spending on illnesses associated with obesity has increased more than tenfold. Employers and privately insured families spent $36.5 billion on obesity-linked illnesses in 2002, compared to an inflation-adjusted $3.6 billion in 1987.
And the problem is only worsening.
According to the lead author and chairman of the department of health policy and management at Emory University in Atlanta, the reason medical costs have spiked so drastically is because so many more Americans are obese and being more aggressively treated for weight-related health problems.
Comparing the Data
In an examination of national surveys of about 14,000 people from 1987-2002--which included data from health care spending, medical conditions and trips to the doctor, hospital and pharmacy--researchers found:
On average, it cost $1,244 more in 2002 to treat an obese person than it did to treat a healthy-weight person; in 1987 that difference was a mere $272.
Diabetes treatments rose 64 percent from 1987 to 2002.
About a quarter of the morbidly obese were treated for six or more conditions in 2002, close to double compared to 1987.
The number of obese patients treated for mental disorders, upper gastrointestinal problems and high cholesterol jumped 10 percent.
Thus, these findings prove that as Americans continue to pack on the pounds, medical costs continue to boom.
USA Today June 27, 2005
Health Affairs June 27, 2005
If you are like most people you will be paying attention to your checkbook. Please understand that the direction “health” care has taken in this country is not helping you.
The drug companies have manipulated the system to focus on expensive Band-Aid solutions that in no way, shape or form treat the underlying cause of the problem. The food industry compounds the problem by catering to our addiction to sweets and convenience. And both industries use some of the brightest people in the history of the world to market their junk to us in amazingly effective ways.
The end result?
Your health and those of the ones you love is in the toilet, and our repair bill is 10 times what it used to be and getting worse every day.
This country simply cannot sustain this type of devastating economic insult. If we continue on this path, many of the social conveniences that we enjoy will progressively vanish.
One of the most tragic casualties of this approach is the effect on your children.
For the first time in history, your children will be living shorter lives than you do.
Yes, you heard me right. If you continue on your current course your children will not live longer than you do. Fortunately, there is still time to reverse this ominous trend.
Dr. Ben Lerner and I are writing a book on childhood obesity that will be published later this year. It will offer some very specific practical guidelines and we hope it will have a major impact on this epidemic.
Until the book comes out, I have three powerful recommendations for you and your child to follow:
Improve your exercise habits and find physical activities for your children to do that are so fun, they’ll want to do them all the time.
Eliminate sugar, and especially soda, from your diet.
Gary Craig’s Comment:
Let me suggest a fourth recommendation that will help relieve the daily stress that often propels children to overeat. On the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Web site is “a MUST procedure for children”. It involves applying EFT at night as children are put to bed and its purpose is to collapse those daily fears and resentments that otherwise accumulate into adulthood anxiety. Persistent use of this procedure brings more peace and grounding to the child and reduces the drive to eat fattening “comfort foods.”
Those without an EFT background can receive an orientation by getting the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual (it includes all the basics). Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get our very affordable training videos.
Gary Craig is a pioneering developer of EFT, a profoundly effective emotional/mental healing approach. Dr. Mercola attributes much of the incredible and permanent patient successes at his clinic, The Optimal Wellness Center, to the fact that EFT is used with every patient to address all three levels of healing: mind, body and spirit. Of the thousands of natural treatments Dr. Mercola has studied and used in his 20 years of practicing medicine, he feels that EFT is the greatest healing technique that exists.
Read more about Gary Craig's EFT Course.
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