How would you “solve” obesity, the cost of which has reached $177 billion as of 2011? Diabetes, cardio, cancer, MS and alzheimer -@wiserguy1971
Clearly Obesity is a national epidemic and has been for at least two decades. America has just gotten fatter and fatter with our processed foods, our lax eating habits, our corporate parks that discourage any form of exercise, and most importantly: our blinding faith that whatever trouble we get in down the road can easily be cured by the miracles of modern medicine.
So we eat. We enjoy our pleasures. We eat, we drink, we smoke, we screw hookers and pass the resulting diseases onto our wives (causing cervical cancer) – there’s no end to the way we punish ourselves.
To answer your question though: there’s no cure.
The only cure is evolution. Eventually one generation sees another generation kill themselves slowly through these ills in our society and then they clean up a little. Eventually the costs of obesity become so great that companies jump into action with incentives to keep weight down, and children learn not to repeat the problems of their parents.
I saw it with my dad. He kept gaining weight. He kept having “TIAs” which are pre-cursors to strokes, but he maintained the same diet, the same intake of alcohol, the same stresses, and guess what? Sleep apnea and stroke. Both diseases related to obesity and weight gain.
There’s two pieces of good news:
- Obesity has plateaued in recent years. And although 33% of American adults are considered obese that number has not gone up (or down) in the past few years. THis is the first time in 20 years the number has remained stable. Although the bad news is 33% is totally unacceptable. Every one of these 33% will have medical dysfunction as a result of being obese.
- Inflation: A few months ago there was this horror story in USA Today. Potato Chip manufacturers were getting hit so hard by inflation they were actually REDUCING THE NUMBER OF CHIPS PER BAG and then, even worse, NOT TELLING US.
Horrors! First USA Today complains about Obesity (it’s a once-a-year standard story) and now they are complaining WE ARE NOT GETTING OUR CHIPS!
This is an outrage! How dare they reduce the chips and not tell me.
But it’s true. Food per dollar spent is going down. So the end result of the Federal Bailouts of 2008 and QE1 through QE 10 will be less obesity. Which, of course, is the ultimate goal of the Federal Reserve.
By the way, this is speaking on a macro level. On a micro level – if you want to lose weight – any diet at all will work if you stick with it. It doesn’t matter what diet. The problem is people can’t stick with a diet. Why will any diet work? Because the main way people get calories is by eating junk food and not a single diet will let you eat donuts all day long.
Exercise increases metabolism. Maybe. And only a little. The only thing that will truly work for you is having 2 meals a day, making the portions no bigger than a fist, and no junk food in between.