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The Cost of Obesity
Americans are fat. We’ve all heard it a million times, but have you ever stopped to think about the cost of obesity? The state of California has done some cost analysis, but not in terms of life span, healthiness, or happiness. Their analysis is in terms of something far more governmentally important: dollars. The state’s health department reported that obesity cost the state around $21.7 billion in 2000 alone. That’s right, billion.
Let’s break this down real quick for the non-math nerds out there. There are 52 weeks in a year and 7 days in a week: 21.7B/52/7 = 59M. That’s $59 million per day to deal with the consequences of obesity using state-funded health care, just in the state of California. For the same amount of money, we could buy 12 M1 Abrams tanks (per day) and put them on fat patrol in the streets of L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco. Contemplate that figure on the Tree of Woe.
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Fat patrol by Brandon
For the same amount of money, we could buy 12 M1 Abrams tanks (per day) and put them on fat patrol in the streets of L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco.
Holy crap, 12 tanks a day?! Before long, they could have a 1:1 tank to McDonald’s ratio. I’m not sure how it would work exactly, but seeing all those tanks have to make at least some people eat vegetables and go jogging, right?
Seriously, though, the government needs to start going for the source of obesity instead of paying out the wazoo to treat its effects. I think one effective way to do this would be to make ‘healthy’ tax deductible. If there is anything that will motivate people to change their lives, it’s money… and it would save a lot of wear and tear on the streets from all the tanks on fat patrol.
Fatties by Bortnyk
While I cannot quantify this in anyway by quoting academia, I have spent some time (4 years) living in Europe. I believe that the proportion of fat people to skinny people in a country is directly related to the prominence of smoking. Germany, everyone smokes (not literally, but mostly) and few are obese. Ireland, no smoking in bars, people are fat. America: as smoking declines in popularity, people are getting fatter. Everyone smoked until the mid 80’s, and now look, everyone is fat. I’m just saying is all.
we need fat kids by Anonymous
yeah, if we let everyone get fat, then the few fat kids at school won’t get picked on because they’ll be normal. you don’t want your kids not beating up fat kids do you? send in the tanks!
A Texas Solution? by nisha_hathi
At least one Texan is trying to find a way to prevent obesity. Texas Senator Eddie Lucio has written a bill (SB 1379) that puts forth some suggestions such as general public awareness campaigns, and proposes that the Dept. of State Health Services work with the Texas Dept. of Insurance to encourage insurance companies and/or employers to help out with the cost of gym memberships. Of course the insured will end up paying for this some other way, but if they think they’re getting a break, they may be more likely to make use of it. There are also other programs that will undoubtedly cost taxpayers a lot of money, but who knows…maybe it’ll be worth it in the long run.
On another note, I’ve spent some time in India, and while the cuisine is by no means the healthiest, much of the population that I’ve seen is not obese. Many Indians ride bikes and walk wherever they need to go, rather than pay for cabs or rickshaws. So apparently, if you don’t sit on your butt all day, you may not get fat. What a concept!
The Fat War by Brandon
It appears that more people than I thought are aware of the obscene cost of the war on obesity. Check out the following lyrics from Takes Time to Build on the latest Beastie Boys album, To the 5 Boroughs:
<i>Environmental destruction and the national dept
But plenty of dollars left in the fat war chest</i>
It looks like the Beasties know all about the ‘fat war’. Apparently there is also some sort of chest the obesity-related funds are stored in that we’ve totally neglected in our discussion…
Its someone elses fault by romanizzo
Realistically, its a cultural attitude problem. Wasn’t there a law suit filed against McD’s because some one got fat eating the McFatBurger?
Its the epidemic cultural sickness of not taking responsibility for your actions and blaming someone else. "I’m fat. But its not my fault."