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The Bulging Costs Of America's Obesity Epidemic
A month ago we chronicled what we consider one of the biggest problems for America's long-term viability in "No Country For Thin Men: 75% Of Americans To Be Obese By 2020" which goes straight to the heart of the biggest shortfall in America's balance sheet: the net present value of future spending associated with Medicare and various other healthcare related programs, which will sadly only rise as more and more Americans become morbidly obese, and demand more expensive health service out of the piggy bank that even now has tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities. And while the future is certainly not bright, the past and present are just as bleak. A Reuters report focuses on just how it is that America got to where it is today (most likely sitting in front a computer, eating potato chips and drinking sugar-laden soda): "The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or "morbid" obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent. The percentage of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 29.9) has held steady: It was 34 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 1961. What seems to have happened is that for every healthy-weight person who "graduated" into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity." Which is not surprising: with pink and white slime food substitutes (as an example) allowing more and more low income individuals to drown their sorrows in fat (aka high calorie dollar meals) it was only a matter of time. Sadly, there is nothing in the equation that indicates this is set to change any time soon, even as the all too real costs, to both the individual and to society, mount in an exponential manner.
Here is a sample of how America's obesity epidemic is causing not just the average circumference of Americans to explode, but also how it is sending private and public sector costs and expenses through the stratosphere:
- 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.
- Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight. The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year; the most obese women, 9.4 days more. Obesity-related absenteeism costs employers as much as $6.4 billion a year, health economists led by Eric Finkelstein of Duke University calculated.
- The very obese lose one month of productive work per year, costing employers an average of $3,792 per very obese male worker and $3,037 per female. Total annual cost of presenteeism due to obesity: $30 billion.
- 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.
- Nationally, that comes to $190 billion a year in additional medical spending as a result of obesity, calculated Cawley, or 20.6 percent of U.S. health care expenditures.
And guess who ends up eating (no pun intended) the shortfall? You:
- Those extra medical costs are partly born by the
non-obese, in the form of higher taxes to support Medicaid and higher
health insurance premiums. Obese women raise such "third party"
expenditures $3,220 a year each; obese men, $967 a year, Cawley and
Meyerhoefer found.
That is only the beginning:
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.
The private sector is starting to take steps to trim America's fat, so to say, with negative reinforcement:
The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration programs for weight loss.
Naturally, in a country which loathes negative reinforcement more than anything (as it involved work to undo retroactive shortfalls), cries of discrimination against fat people are reaching fever pitch:
Such measures do not sit well with all obese Americans. Advocacy groups formed to "end size discrimination" argue that it is possible to be healthy "at every size," taking issue with the findings that obesity necessarily comes with added medical costs.
Oddly enough, nobody had a problem with smokers being stigmatized: after all while eating is optional, even stuffing your mouth with the worst filth imaginable, it is simply unamerican to blame someone for eating. Smoking is a different matter entirely. Yet when one cuts to the chase, smoking is a far lower financial drag on society than fatness (sic):
One recent surprise is the discovery that the costs of obesity exceed those of smoking. In a paper published in March, scientists at the Mayo Clinic toted up the exact medical costs of 30,529 Mayo employees, adult dependents, and retirees over several years.
"Smoking added about 20 percent a year to medical costs," said Mayo's James Naessens. "Obesity was similar, but morbid obesity increased those costs by 50 percent a year. There really is an economic justification for employers to offer programs to help the very obese lose weight."
And here we get into some rather Mengelian demographic reverse eugenics:
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."
In other words, those damn fat people just refuse to die. One is unsure whether to laugh or cry that this is the kind of prudent financial analysis that would carry tens, if not hundreds of trillions in unfunded medical costs. And yet, that's precisely what it is.
Where one does have to laugh is when extrpolating physical events as a result of obesity. Such as gas prices.
Some costs of obesity reflect basic physics. It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds. As a result, a vehicle burns more gasoline carrying heavier passengers than lighter ones.
"Growing obesity rates increase fuel consumption," said engineer Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois. How much? An additional 938 million gallons of gasoline each year due to overweight and obesity in the United States, or 0.8 percent, he calculated. That's $4 billion extra.
It gets better:
The built environment generally is changing to accommodate larger Americans. New York's commuter trains are considering new cars with seats able to hold 400 pounds. Blue Bird is widening the front doors on its school buses so wider kids can fit. And at both the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, seats are wider than their predecessors by 1 to 2 inches.
The new performance testing proposed by transit officials for buses, assuming an average passenger weight of 175 instead of 150 pounds, arise from concerns that heavier passengers might pose a safety threat. If too much weight is behind the rear axle, a bus can lose steering. And every additional pound increases a moving vehicle's momentum, requiring more force to stop and thereby putting greater demands on brakes. Manufacturers have told the FTA the proposal will require them to upgrade several components.
Leave it to Keynesians to justify away fatness:
"Yes, a heart attack will generate economic activity, since the surgeon and hospital get paid, but not in a good way," said Murray Ross, vice president of Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Policy. "If we avoided that heart attack we could have put the money to better use, such as in education or investments in clean energy."
From Broken Window to Busted Ticker falacy. Brilliant.
The best news, however, is that at least the fat are as docile as Hindu cows (just before they are eaten in the local McDonalds):
The books on obesity remain open. The latest entry: An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man. Researchers have yet to run the numbers on what that might save.
And so it goes on.
As noted, while we are unsure whether to laugh or cry, the sad conclusion sticks out like an overflowing midsection: spending related to America's obesity epidemic will merely continue to rise. One can argue about the behvioral reasons for this propensity of Americans to chew the fat until one is blue in the face, but the truth is that until cheap, low quality food is easily accessible, as long as a sedentary lifestyle is dominant (and with more and more working in front of a computer all day long this won't change any time soon), and as long as healthcare is supposedly prefunded and exists to everyone, the problem will only get worse.
So go out, have that $0.99 cent meal, and enjoy life. Because a stray heart attack is only a few cholesterol molecules away.
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Your body DOES have receptors which signal when your stomach is "full." Look it up.
I know EXACTLY where you are coming from with your body's craving for nutrients. I am far from ignorant on this subject.
Most people of the developed world have not ever felt hungry. The feeling that people call hungry is merely your body breaking down the wastes (catabolism) previously taken in. The worse you eat, the more "hungry" you feel. But the stomach cramps, dizziness, etc is not hunger. True hunger is felt in the throat, like a thirst, as well heightened senses dealing with eating.
The reason that you reach an ideal weight by eating whole high nutrient based foods is because they tend (excepting beans, nuts and seeds) to have a high volume to calorie ratio. And vegetables are high in soluble and insoluble fiber. The bulk insures a higher nutrient to calorie ratio while filling your stomach, thus activating the nerve stretch receptors telling your brain that your stomach is full.
The reason why I stated MOSTLY is exactly the point you picked up on, the fact that your body craves what it needs, meaning nutrients.
I would also take offense with your using the term organic. Another trap word. The closer you harvest a vegetable to it's peak ripeness, the higher percentage of phytonutrients it contains, whether that comes from an organic source or not.
Organic is now merely a marketing word when it comes to the nutrients contained in the food. As to the pesticides, yes, organic is better. But not regarding the nutrient density.
pods
Nonsense. Most people of the developed world eat a bag of chips or some similar snack so often BECAUSE they were hungry for it.
Consuming lots of carbohydrate does that to a body, swinging it from insulin spike to craving to insulin spike until so much damage is done that they have metabolic syndrome.
That is not hunger silly.
And bold text does not a strong argument make.
If you would like to put your knowledge up against a doctor who has saved countless lives, reversed diabetes, heart disease, and numerous auto immune conditions be my guest.
http://toyourhealthnutrition.blogspot.com/2010/02/toxic-hunger-main-cause-of-obesity-by.html
Damn straight. It's not the fat that people eat that makes them fat, it's the sugars, which includes all sugary junk food, fruit and fruit juice, and grains/starches/carbs that break down into sugar. You wanna be healthy? Eat meat and veg. And take a job that involves physical labor.
Bullshit. Beans, Rice, Canned Corn and Powdered milk and vitamins are cheap.
Which is why, the poorer one is, in the developed world, the more likely one is to be fat and have any of the many diseases correlated with obesity.
Carbs are cheap.
And subsidized/price controlled in lots of places to ensure exactly that, which, in addition to the governement advice to eat "low fat" diets, has caused an enormous amount of disease
Upvoted for the sodium recognition.
Downvoted from the "expensive" comment. That depends on where you live. I live in rural midwest, on a 10 acre plot. It's darned near free for me. Cost a few (actually a metric shit-ton) of seeds and a boatload of work a decade ago, but I now spend less time on the orchards, vinyards, and garden than you spend going to the grocery store - it's free and who needs a gym when you have a hoe.
It is expensive to eat healthy. But it is also true that a lot of people simply won't deny themselves anything. The lack of self-discipline applies to food as well as to managing personal finances.
Obesity is caused by all the Processed Food being forced down our throats. No pun intended. Pink Slime is the latest example.
Plant a garden. I'm out!
Obesity is caused by people who eat like pigs!
Eat less! Pink slime or no pink slime!
Most all of the 'obesity problem' is laid right at the govt's feet....EBT food stamp cards are the problem. Cut those out, and no obesity.
Also worthy of mention is the government-subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup in pretty much every food item that those EBT cards can buy.
Than don't eat it!
Throw it away!
Feed it to the pigs!
That's for who it was intented for!
Yes and no. Good old fashioned cain sugar is nearly identical in terms of impact on health: Sucrose is 50% fructose, 50% glucose. HFCS 55 used in soft drinks is 55% fructose, with much of the balance being, you guessed it, glucose. Either way fructose is very bad for you in high doses available today on the continuous basis we have today.
Humans went millions of years only getting big loads of fructose when fruits were ripe, IN SEASON. Their livers could recover. Ours are under continuous assault. And we have loads of glycation end products piling up in our bodies and interfering with everything, causing premature aging and disease throughout the body. Cutting back on fructose-containing products is key to good health. That includes limiting fruit intake, folks.
Nop, fat fuck who are to lazy to excersise.
Fat fuck who eat to much.
IF IT SAYS "PORTION FOR 1" ON THE BOX, IT DOESN'T MEAN "STARTERS"
ONLY FAT BASTARDS LOOK FOR EXCUSES!
Bullshit! It isn't just the food stamp recipients that are obese. It's conditioning, brain-washing, training, from the first time the TV is turned on for junior when he hasn't even reached his first birthday. It's CocoPuffs and their awful competitors that pay for this conditioning and are permitted to brain-wash the kids while the parents get to sleep and fuck-in.
It is not free choice, not by a parsec, anymore than a puppie has free will. It is criminal. Thank you Eddie Bernays for showing us how to commit profitable (for the food and health industries) societal suicide.
I agree with the TV conditioning factor in obesity. There is also class conditioning as an obesity factor. Not all that long ago, most poor and middle class people were skinny and worked jobs that required manual labor. As they were growing up, parents encourged their children to eat more and to strive for an office job, both of which were derived from the parent's perception of upward mobility.
EBT food stamp cards are the problem. Cut those out, and no obesity.
Yup, dead people can't eat.
They also can't vote, except in Chicago. I think you have found a problem here that solves itself. A self-solving-solution to the Commie problem we have here in America. Good thinkin
Being forced down our throats? Seems to me like the pigs are choosing to eat the slop. Those of us who believe in free choice choose not to participate in the all you can eat pink slime banquets.
Those of you that believe in free choice are dumb fucks. Free choice and cause and effect are mutually exclusive, no matter what your criminal lying preacher told you. Bernie Spinoza proved there is no free choice in the 17th century. This is the result of conditioning.
Philosophy is just that ...philosophy. It proves nothing and only presents an idea.
bingo
Where's the proud goddamned!
FAT IS FAT!!!!'
No excuse applies!!
Bigboned, gene obese MY ASS!!!
IF A MAN CAN'T SEE HIS DICK ANYMORE HE'S A MAN NO MORE!!!!
IF A MAN CAN'T RUN EVEN 5 MILES WITHOUT LOSING HIS BREATH HE'S A FAT PIG!!!
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
NO EXCUSES!!
NO COUNTRY WAS EVER BUILD BY EXCUSES!!!
How does that work for the fairer sex who have no dicks?
They to should never be able to see one ever again.
What's the fun in fucking a fat woman?
I fuck with the lights on. And my wife is 32 years old and still has the body of a 18 year old. No harm in telling her when she adds a few pounds to many.
She must be a Walloon. Does she talk dirty to you in Walon too?
The Flemish know how to enjoy all all those wonderful edible fats you have. It ain't cause they're dieters that you have the best ice cream and chocolats (by far) in the world.
Do mirrors count?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4SKgHKTQ6I
Not rude, honest.
Being able to walk 300 stairs without dropping to the ground is actually fun.
You know what it took for me (Age 46) to finally get my weight more-or-less under control? I got sick and tired of my doctor yelling at me every year at my annual physical. Well that, and I got sick and tired of having to take pharma for blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure regulation. I dropped almost 70-pounds from my All-Time-High of 292 last year with a slow-carb diet and daily exercise - if I can keep it off for a year I might actually be in Ty-II remission.
Sadly, my GP (who sees A LOT of Ty-II) thinks I'm one of only about 5-10 percent who have actually taken the steps necessary to get it under control.
You know what didn't help? People screaming about how my problem fitting into an airline coach seat is because of "size dicrimination".
a lot of doctors don't tell their Type-II patients that carbs are to blame and not fat. Therefore, they never lose the weight. Lose the carbs, lose the weight.
It ain't all about weight and carbs. My Pop is 162 lbs (at 6'0") and eats virtually zero carbs (it's hard to actually get down to zero - but he eats about 5% of the carbs you and I eat and has for 6 years).
Still Type II diabetic.
Still on the meds.
For many (most?) you are correct, but not for all.
http://www.rawfor30days.com/themovie.html
It's not just carbs, though. And not all carbs. I eat a can of beans (black, pinto, white, whatever) or lentils every day (thankfully they don't make me gassy!), but what I avoid like the plague is any "white" starch (bread, rice, sugar of course) and also try to avoid (to the extent I can) processed foods and I never "drink calories".
Working for me so far.
Hey doc, check out Dr. Fuhrman, he does wonders with Type II's. No more pharma.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Sudden Debt
A man ain't no man if this shit he talks he won't repeat to a LARGE BLACK MAN!
A Man ain't no man if the shit he talks he won't repeat to a BIG BIKER!
A man ain't no man if the shit he talks he won't repeat to a LARGE HISPANIC!
A man ain't no man if the shit he talks he won't repeat to a SAMOAN!
A man ain't no man if he can ONLY SAFELY SPEW SHIT ON THE NET BECAUSE HE KNOWS IN REAL LIFE HE WOULKD GET HISS KICKED!
Just because your balls growed ten times in your mind don't mean they that way for reals.
So your fat.
What your going to do about it?
Eat some more?
Sudden Debt
So you got a microphallus and teeny balls.
Or so your wife says.
Either way you are part of the group who talk out of their ass and say shit they never would in public.
A coward.
If you can't say it in public, if you can't be proud of your ideology, don't pretend you have any courage in private.
Everyone grows a huge set of iron balls when they think no one sees them, but those balls shink like George Costanza in from a cold ocean swim when reality stares them in the face.
I got a very large phallus and only one ball. Cancer surgery y'know - but the chicks dig it. It's got that cool "Hey - I fucked a one-ball-man" kinda freak-factor to it.
I talk shit in public and private. Really sucks at job interviews 'cause you've got no references left, but a Dude's gotta do what a Dude's gotta do to maintain some dignity, amirite?
That being said, lose the damned weight, lardass. You know you need to get on that shit. You know it's killing you. You are a weak, undiciplined sloth unless/until you take it off (and you know it), so get on and do what you know needs to be done instead of dicking around on the internet.
BTW - 6'0", 158 lbs. I'm AOK in that department, Bichez.
Made me laugh.
Nice stroke on liberty.
:)
Your fat
:)
If I met you in public, I'd call you a fat bastard and slowly walk away so you couldn't catch me as fat guys can only throw their fat asses on people who stand still.
If he could behave otherwise, he wont be a US citizen.
US citizen nature is eternal.
Gully Foyle: "So you got a microphallus and teeny balls.
Or so your wife says.
Either way you are part of the group who talk out of their ass and say shit they never would in public.
A coward.
If you can't say it in public, if you can't be proud of your ideology, don't pretend you have any courage in private.
Everyone grows a huge set of iron balls when they think no one sees them, but those balls shink like George Costanza in from a cold ocean swim when reality stares them in the face."
NOW WILL YOU DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING FUCKTARD. REMEMBER, IF YOU CAN, THAT ALL YOUR FUCKIN TOUGH TALK IS ALSO BY WAY OF ANONYMOUS BLOG COMMENTARY....EXACTLY WHAT YOU CLAIM TO BE RIDICULING. SHUT THE FUCK UP. GO PLANT A TREE OR SOMETHING.
It would be better for the world if he were to suspend his body from the tree, by the neck.
BTW his postings are so idiotic he's got anonyretard scrambling to keep up
I think Gully Foil is a disrupter virus. He merely posts to disrupt any thread. He doesn't really care or give a crap about any of these topics.
"IF A MAN CAN'T SEE HIS DICK ANYMORE HE'S A MAN NO MORE!!!!"
Around these parts we have a saying. Nothing grows in the shade.
Sudden Debt
In Europe people look in the mirror and say to themselves "gee I'm getting a little plump, I guess I should eat less and exercise more".USA we look in the mirror and say " gee I'm so fat I can't see my dick...gosh I need a bigger dick!". it's just one of those cultural differences we have that makes it hard to understand each other.
Miffed:-)
Gold(en arches) bitchez!
iSlime something pink in my eye....and belly.
Ironic that the country with the most diet aids, plans, schemes & scams - still has the most obese people in the world.
Like the 2008 animation Wall-E - where all the humans are big fat lazy pieces of shit, self-centred, with no capability of independent thinking and just catered to by being driven around everywhere on a mobile chair...
Speaking of Pixar, everyone should go and re-watch Monsters Inc and A Bugs Life
Easy to cure, cut out EBT and BRIDGE food cards and I gurantee 95% of the 'obesity epidemic' is cured within 6 months.
"The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent"
And how much has the Fed increased the money supply ;)
The reason that Americans are fat is the food industry lies. Low fat, but higher sugar, food is pushed as being healthy. This is a complete fabrication.
Once you learn that the USDA was started as marketing group for farmers you realize whose side they are on.
With all the information out there, you cannot claim ignorance as to how to properly eat.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
pods
Yup - the Food Pyramid is a joke.
It's worse than a joke - it's dangerous. That's why I stick to my three basic food groups: dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. I really miss the pizza, though.
They simply eat to much!
Have you ever compaired the portions that americns eat and what europeans eat?
I was in Texas a few years back and I once saw 4 guys eating A PIG!
Ey fucking finished it!
I was full after 1 potion of ribs! They where hughe!
It's not our fault europeans are a bunch of pantywaists...
how much do you bench, son?
I push 170 pounds, 8 times.
And I weigh 150 pounds.
You are absolutely right. I can't believe what some of these people eat. You go to a restaurant and these pigs will eat a nachos appetizer, a side salad loaded with dressing, a big plate of fried chicken with all the sides and, cheese cake for dessert. Then the fat fucks will wash it down with a diet Coke.
Some people love aspartame. I mix aspartame with water to combat certain types of ants. They love it. They also die. I assume there's a cause-effect relationship.
Yea, they eat too much....pretty easy to do whan that bucket of KFC was bought by swiping an EBT card!
Along with cheap, toxic vegetable oils that replaced natural animal fats.
Yaahh... Riiiggghhttt... Lies I tell you.. No it has nothing to do with an average person consuming a couple extra thousands of calories per day..
No, it has nothing to do with computers, internet, and setting on our arses for a good part of the day. Nope, its those liar food companies...
The reason that Americans are fat is because they eat to much and don't exercise enough.
Listen, if you can read the ingredients on a side of a Nutella bottle you would see the following:
So for 10 ml of spread there are 200 calories, half from fat. Yet a class action lawsuit in California brought by a bunch of mothers who claimed that Nutella was in fact not a healthy breakfast food was settleted for $2.5m. Rewarding the morons of the world who are unable to read a food label, and hold themselves accountable.
Now does the food industry lie....absolutely. Just like every other industry in the world.
However, the reality is calories in calories out....MATH, generally wins the day.
I heard about that suit Lizzy. Could not believe it.
Who would have thought that a spread made from nuts was high fat/high calorie?
Serving size, 37g.
Sugar per serving, 21g.
Nutella = Brown Slime. People's inability to read nutritional info and let the front label fool them proves just how badly people aren't really thinking, and are just letting someone else do the thinking for them.
This article is making me sick. I'm going biking now.
The fat in that Nutella is not the problem, it is the 21g of "sugars" that cause insulin production and fat storage.
The fat arriving without the sugars would satiate and keep the body burning fat. Insulin production signals the body to burn sugar not fat, whilst also storing as much as it can.
The reason that Americans are fat is because they eat to much and don't exercise enough.
I gave you a thumbs down. I hate when people spell "too", "to". I HATE IT I HATE IT!
"Uh, wow. At least it appears that the fat don't break the law:
The books on obesity remain open. The latest entry: An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man."
Only because they know they can't run away?
Shit - beat me to it - well played sir....
No worries! Use your EBT card at McDonalds!
youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII
All we really need to do here is stop subsidizing the corn and soy products that are turned into sugars and Frankenfoods and making us fat. If people had to pay actual cost for their cheap-as-shit big gulps, they'd go back to water and most of this problem would go away.
Just drop a Neutron Bomb on every McDonalds, Five Guys and Olive Garden and problem solved. "Kill the Obese" by the Dead Kennedys
God is she hot. Where can I meet something like that? And I'm betting she has a wonderful entitlement mentality to boot.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
Gee, I thought Austerity was the cure for Obesity...
You just swipes yo EBT card, bitchez! Bucket of fried chicken comin right up, didnt even cost you a dime!
So I need to listen to all of the people telling me that we all need to reduce our carbon footprint because the planet can't handle all of these humans AND I need to listen to all of the people telling me what I need to do to live longer? WTF????
I prefer to eat ice cream whenever I want and live to 60 than to spend 60 years not eating ice cream and then getting hit by an ice cream truck at 61.
Agree. This is the crux of the health care debate. Government run health care provides the State with a vested interest in what it allows people to eat or not eat and who gets treated for what or doesn't get treated. Folks who want to live their lives they way they want -- aka liberty -- might create additional expense for the government and hence the government will then believe it has the vested interest in stopping people from living the way they want to.
This is true with all liberties (e.g. financial - folks want to spend all of their income and not save for calamity or retirement -- and then beg the taxpayers to save them).
We should let folks suffer the consequences of their poor choices (and fyi - they may think they are good choices). We don't have enough money to fix everyone and the moral hazard just creates a much bigger problem. Limited government!
I find it disturbing that so many people - think Mayor Bloomberg and FLOTUS - are willing to tell others what to eat for their own good but at the same time would scream about human rights if someone suggested that certain types of risky behavior (think the HIV/AIDS epidemic) required government prevention. I concur with your closing paragraph, whether applied to healthcare or TBTF banks.
"The latest entry: An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man." - That's because fatties are too slow to get away and they know this. Thanks ZH - this was a good one....
Yeah, that and the lack of burglary clothes in size XXXXL, and the fact that they can't climb to that wide open second story window, and the fact that the police catch them too easily because the po-po just follow the trail of crumbs.
This is one of my favorite subjects about my homeland. Whenever I fly back into the states from a stay in Europe, especially Scandinavia, I am blown away by the gigantic size of many Americans. I come down from my hotel room for a coffee and a piece of toast in the moring and watch waitresses stream past me with huge breakfast plates piled with grease and eggs and you name it! My god man, there is more food on those plates than I eat in two days staying in Sweden. How in god's name can a person go on living bloated with that crap?
The health care costs are mind blowingly high. A friend who works in a rehabilitaion unit associated with a major hospital calls these people Water Buffalos, indeed much of the staff does. I often hear tales of the costs associated with these hugely overweight people. Believe me, you would be knocked off of your feet if you knew the health problem that this massive overweight causes.
We pay for it in our insurance premiums, we pay for much of it through medicare and medicaid. It will bring the medical system down. Our youth are now approaching Water Buffalo status at increasingly young ages. Bloated 5 year old! Amazing.
It won't "bring the medical system down." It's made the American "health care system" the most profitable in the world. There are pockets of poverty therein, of course. But that's because some of the local operators still just don't get it. They are still under the delusion that they're there to help humanity rather than help themselves. The pharma and insurance industries are doing very well, thank you. The average worker and taxpayer, not so much. It's still the leading cause of personal bankruptcies and in about half of those cases, the bankruptor was insured.
Their brain-washing the public is obviously working or else there wouldn't be so many people believing their bullshit. "We pay for it in our insurance premiums, we pay for much of it through medicare and medicaid" is because it's planned that way. It capitalism at its worst.
On another note, I never could swallow cold pickled fish in the morning. How do you do that without gagging?
It's capitalism at its worst?
Sorry, it isn't capitalism at all. It may be fascism, perhaps, but it's not capitalism. All you listed rely on the force of government.
Fascism is capitalism at its worst. It's what happens when money is allowed to invest in (buy) government. It can be a very (monetarily) profitable "investment". The successful buyer is the highest bidder, (which is not to say that the unsuccessful bidders for access get their bid deposits returned). It would help if government wasn't allowed to have firearms.
An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man.
The government should ditch those expensive flying drones in order to control the populace. Buying everyone Big Macs and Delusionol should take of this whole crazy "revolution" thingy on da'cheap.
LOL, the cops are getting bigger too. Too much time being spent at the doughnut shop and sitting in the car.
Better to have them in a doughnut shop than operating a profit center (speed trap).
Is this yet another sign, as we are repeated harangued by our dear Chinese dishwasher friend, of US Citizens blobbing-up?
Could be. Fat floats.
Austerity and starvation will go a long ways towards correcting this imbalance or popping this bubble.
Actually, starvation can induce obesity when all that is available to the poor in question are the cheapest refined carbohydrates.
I know this is off topic but I have a confession to make. At one time when you said that Canadian banks were in trouble during the recession, I disagreed. Well, now I find out you were right. See below:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publication...
I am ashamed of our secretive lying government.
Discussed here:
Quantifying The Big Five Canadian Banks' $114 Billion Bailout
This is why the earth is leaning towards china.
We have an obese deficit to match the US health. Super-sized US debt!
The airline for fat people coming next. Extra wide seats at movies. Bigger seats and bigger hamburgers at US McDonalds and other fast food restaurants.
Bigger caskets. It's the reason many big people drive big sized SUVs. Wider isles at supermarkets so people that are so big they can't walk anymore can ride their motorized carts.
Bigger and bigger and bigger. Just like US deficits.
Its hopeles. I work in the Med. field and see it all the time.
People are clueless on nutrition and buy the latest fad diet and eat the McCrap advertised on the lastest TV mindless show.
Dont care? YOU ARE PAYING BY HIGHER HEALTH CARE PREMIUMS.
Article is good, but makes a mistake that's so common these days it's scary. Dietary animal fat and dietary cholesterol are not the problem, people ate more of both 100 years ago. The problem is subsidized commodity grains being turned into food, including "healthy, low-fat" food. The other day I saw a carton of fat-free half-and-half on the shelf, made from skim milk with corn syrup in place of butterfat. This vast sea of cheap carbs - with the fat removed, so there's no satiety, so people chronically spike and dip blood sugar, and overeat - is what's killing Americans. Read Gary Taubes, check the Mark's Daily Apple site. It takes 10 cents worth of commodity corn to make 4 bucks worth of tortilla chips - 5 cents of commodity wheat to make a 3 buck box of crappy cold cereal - etc. etc. Buy (or grow) local, eat more fat (except for soybean oil, the one kind of fat Americans still eat, highly inflamatory) and vegetables, and back away from the grain trough.
Hog farmers have known for years that they can't fatten a hog on fat. But they can fatten the hog on corn. After porking out on the corn, the hogs have a nap. When they awaken, they're hungry again and go back to the trough (like h. sapiens). Fat satisfies hunger for a much longer time. Hogs have very similar digestive tracts and nutritional requirements to humans.
The good news is if we go the Soylent Green recycling route, we won't need to change our diets much.
It's even better when the pigs are fed GMO corn.
Oh, wait, am I on the wrong website? All those chemtrails must be making me confused.
Ditto with sumo wrestlers. Young athletes can get fat eating lots of simple carbs, for much the same reason. They can keep going back to the trough after a short delay. Eating meat and vegetables only, particularly meat with proper fat levels not the idiotic "lean" meat, leans people up, every time, and quickly.
What he said.
Avoid all hydrogenated oils though.
Stick to coconut oil (best for cooking due to high smoke point), palm oil and olive oil.
the net present value of future spending associated with Medicare and various other healthcare related programs, which will sadly only rise as more and more Americans become morbidly obese,
False.
The sooner people die, the cheaper they are. Fat people die younger. They're cheaper.
Half true.
They do die earlier, but not before 2 or 3 Million$$ worth of surgeries and drugs for their Diabetes issues.
not before 2 or 3 Million$$ worth of surgeries and drugs for their Diabetes issues.
That's not right. Most morbidly-obese are treated for basic things like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but at this point, virtually everyone is treated for such issues. Type II diabetes isn't that expensive.
EVERYONE ends up with $2-3 million in medical expenses starting about 3 years before death. The healthiest fittest 90 year old is going to cost $2-3 million "to die." That cost is statistically *fixed.*
What changes is *when* you pay the $2-3 million. In the case of the morbidly obese, the payment is often made before they reach Social Security and/or Medicare benefit age.
Ka-ching, baybee. Mo'money, mo'money. If you care about the money more than the people, you should be agitating for a government-subsidized smoking program. Issue cigarettes to prisoners, the mentally ill, welfare recipients, and the social undesirables.
Fuck 'em if they won't die young so you can afford a nicer vacation.
I used to be about 205, little paunch. I was healthy according to the BMI (and what a fraud that is).
I took up weightlifting. I got up to 235, although I'm now around 225. I am by their definition morbidly obese.
Screw 'em all. Fat people will distract the zombies, being more tempting and slower moving, to my advantage.
Same thing happened to me in the military, I used to lift a lot and when it came time for weight and measurements the numbers put me at 'fat' although I was in excellent shape.
BMI is a crap metric, % body fat is what should be measured but that would make sense and we can't have that.
How can somebody look into the mirror and look to a fat bag of a body?
How can one eat after looking to that?
If your 50 and you have a belly, it's oké, that's age.
But not young people younger than 40.
For the love of god!
Every time I see a young fat guy or womna, I always say to myself "how can somebody live like that?"
Every time I go to America I take pictures of fat people to show them back home. The fatter teh funier.
I once called a female police officer who was round and probably 400 pounds a lan by saying "excuse me sir".
That bitch yelled at me! IT WASN'T MY FAULT SE LOOKED LIKE A FAT PIG WHERE YOU COULDN'T SEE IF IT WAS FEMALE OR MALE!!
Even this author is clueless as to why there is an obesity problem. He doesn't mention Omega-3 fats even once in the essay. But he does blame the eating of fat and pushes the same drivel you can get from the USDA’s failed food suggestions of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables along with a meager four ounces of meat twice a week. Therefore he contributed nothing to the knowledge base of the masses. When will this kind of worthless drivel stop and real science surface? There is an answer to obesity and it works always every time.
The Real Diet of Man is Very Simple: http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/the_real_diet_of_man.htm
That’s the story that needs to be told. I eat a lot of animal fat and I weigh 150 pounds and stand 5'10" tall. But I eat the Diet of Man rather than the diet pushed in the latest Sunday Supplement. Or, and if you want to read something scientific, look at this. http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/70/3/560S.pdf
Right on the mark, grass fed beef is awesome. I too eat the diet of man and have sense 2003. I'm 48 and have maintained a lean heathy 180lbs on my 6' frame for all that time with no great need of exercise. I require no meds, my blood pressure is perfect and I look like a 38yo except for my salt and pepper hair.
Amen to that -- the good fats are good for us -- how did humans get enough fat in their heads to host brain circuitry?
Dr. Ron lays it out well in the following:
http://www.drrons.com/dr-rons-superfats-super-fun-diet.htm
Like you I live the benefit you described -- no big mystery, just eat grassfed, pastured, what worked for eons..
BEAR DOWN
End Farm subsidies and make processed factory food cost as much as real food you can make in your kitchen.
Fast food:
Subsidized corn syrup in soda
Subsidized "beef" from subsidized corn fed feed lots
subsidized canola, corn, soy beans for fry oil.
Fatties sweat pants are being filled up by the grace of our subsides and food stamps.
Government needs a starvation diet, then Americans will deflate.
It is interesting to note that the energy storage of fat is about equal to gasoline. Once again, America is ahead of the curve, storing energy in wait for a spike in fuel cost, which will force them into walking to the grocery store.
Anyone measuring Napolitanos or Hillarys BMI? Yea I DOUBT it! Fat bitchez.
The only thing we are missing at our diners are the vomitoriums. I wonder which chain will be the first to put one in.
A fat population is not likely to engage in insurrection...
Well said.
Too funny Dr.Engali. I've seen the exact same thing. A wendy's triple stack cheeseburger (who would eat that?) combo meal, with a diet coke? That doesn't even constitute a half ass half measure. It's like slapping a band aid on a gushing artery.LOL
Criminally charge parents for their children's obesity and their limited lifetime production capacity.
You'd rather live in a totalitarian state that's all over how you raise your kids than a society in which your neighbors are fat?
Fuck you, pal.
I can't believe anybody junked you for that....
You're 100% right!
Kids should be able to sue their parents if they're fat!
For the love of god! Why does any parent allow their kids to be mocked as fatties?!?
Parents need to raise proud kids!
NoT fat lazy Xbox playing morons!
No fat kids in Sparta.
(but i are with blunderdog 100%)
Freedom is the solution. You eat what you want to eat, I eat what I want to eat. Problem solved.
(Technically: solved when I no longer have to pay for what you want to eat)
FREEEEEEDOM!!!!!!
Give the people what they want, or at least what food companies want to sell (low cost high margin shit) and look what happens. The wonders of the free market.
Those stupid Europeans and Canadians with their health care and slimmer lifestyles (and less freedom). What does it get them? A longer healthier life, that's all.
It is easy to show that Europe and Canada both have far more freedom now than Prison Camp USA, so you're post is right, in a 'your finger pointed at yourself' way.
Ba Donka Donk Bitches
Its a part of stimulus plan.
Nobody mentions the buckets of sugary water, officially called pop, as an unhealthy part of the diet and possibly causing obesity??
Moreover, look at people walking in daylight, say in NY city or Toronto. The people there are way slimmer even if they can eat the same amount of calories compared to their driving-everywhere fellows.
Horse shit. I've been drinking that crap since I was old enough to remember and I'm no lard ass.
+1 on the get up and fucking DO something people. Hike. Run, Bike. Split firewood. Help your lard ass buddy roof his house. Push mow your dumbass weed free golf green looking yard.
stay off the carbs and the vegetable oil. Despite what the all knowing TV tells you, Butter is not evil, it's natural fat and easily used by your body, the hydrogenated shit will make your blood type raghu.
I drink a concoction called "Bulletproof Coffee" every morning at 7AM. 2 tablespoons of organic butter from grass-fed cows and one tablespoon of MCT oil blended with quality coffee. I have boundless energy and don't get hungry until at least 2 PM. If I had spread that butter on a muffin, I'd be "hungry" again by 10 AM.
The stores need larger isles. For those too huge to walk they ride the carts. One woman was so big and slow I could have made it around the other side of the isle to pickup what I needed.
The Obese mentality is also causing obese debt.
The US needs a fiscal diet.
US debt is classified as morbidly obese.
Most people who make it to 65 and over do not include the obese. You rarely see Elderly Obese. So, I wouldn't fret about the future expense.
Meanwhile, Fat people are likely very profitable to many industries. Chemical companies are well supported by the Government such as USDA and FDA; and their chemicals end up in your food. Another factor is Hormones in meat. Notice how many obese are not only fat but they actually look deformed....I personally believe that is the result of Bovine hormones, anti-biotics, and chemicals in the foods.
Even if you buy all Organic meats and foods, you will end up with a contaminated body until you stop eating at restaurants. Unless it's organic restaurant. Most Restaurants get the cheapest meat they can...chicken from Tyson, etc.
We should stop pointing fingers at certain groups of people as the ultimate in cost to society. The rich are costing us in taxes they don't pay and subsidies and bailouts they get. Fat people for their doctor bills, smokers and druggers for their addictions, Mentally ill and retarded for low productivity and high reliance on government programs, Children for education needs, etc etc. Pretty soon there isn't many people you can leave out of some "category".
The primary fattener is cheap plentiful carbohydrates. Meat is good for you, if you are a human.
Going off the rails on a gravy train.
Short: eyecandy
Long: all other candy
If someone gets too fat to walk or wipe their own ass that is their problem, not mine. Paying six medical professionals around the clock to take care of someone who won't take care of themselves is a waste. Let Darwin have his due.
One's weight in Kg divided by their hight in meters squared is no more and indicator of their health as the CPI is to the "health" of the economy.
George Carlin;
Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried, butter-dipped in pork fat and Cheese-Whiz, mayonnaise, soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. Americans will eat anything. Anything. Anything. Shit, if you were selling sautéed raccoons' assholes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them! Especially if you were to dip them in butter and put a little salsa on them!
This country is big-time pig time. Forget the Star-Spangled Banner. You know what the national anthem of this country outta be? The Oscar-Meyer Commercial Jingle! And while we're at it, change the bald eagle to a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. A big bowl. 'Cause everything in this country is king size, extra large and super jumbo. Especially the fucking people! Have you seen some of the people in this country? Have you taken a good look at some of these big, fat motherfuckers walking around? Big fat motherfuckers! Oh, my God. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm, lumbering through the malls like a fleet of interstate buses.
The people in this country are immense. Massive bellies, monstrous thighs, and big fat fucking asses! Next time you're in the vicinity of one of these creatures, stand there for a minute and observe. And if you stand there for a minute you'll begin to wonder, "How does this woman take a shit?" How does she shit? And more frightening still, how does she wipe her ass? Can she even locate her asshole? She must require assistance. Are paramedics trained in this field?
Maybe a catheter permanently installed in the obese anus that can be connected to standardized vacuum device is marketable as a modern solution to an ancient problem. If you patent this, I'm claiming prior art.
Image what these people will look like after austerity measures kick in. You will see millions of people walking around with mounds of loose skin hanging off them. It won't be pretty to look at.
You'd be surprised. People are eating pasta like never before. Don't believe me? Go to any average supermarket and see how much space they devote to pasta, rice, & sauce.
You can get huge off beans & rice. Additionally, people now swipe an EBT card at McDonalds.
MY personal favorite spectacle of a feed trough is CheeseCakeFactory. Any time of day those places are packed,; the portions are gigantic and the people are too. It always reminds me for feedlots for finishing cattle, absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Agreed. Last time I was in a CKF, was several years ago. Thought I'd be good and just order a salad. It arrived in a what had to be a punch bowl. It was so absurdly large my wife and I just looked at it and laughed. We've never been back since.
Comes the reset... they all go on a diet - like it or not!
Maybe they're all preppers who store fat to cover a 2 year food shortage?
all we need are some hardwood ashes and we'll have shit tons of soap from all these wrinkle neck bubble asses.
Wendigo Meats and Soaps, LLC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WwMXyxumBM&feature=related
Brawndo's got what fat people crave....electrolytes.
One thing I never hear discussed whenever this subject is brought up: the fact that all of these huge people take massive dumps. This is literally double-tasking our municipal waste systems. Another thing: think how much extra fuel is used by obese people. Don't laugh. You put two obese people in a car, that car is carrying at least 200 pounds extra. Now, do the math on that across the country.