The High Price of Obesity

Obesity is a crisis in America, so much so that it is expected to surpass smoking as the number one killer in early deaths. In addition, it limits the quality of life for many Americans who weight over 400 pounds and are labeled the super obese, certainly not a label any of us want to have. Childhood obesity is already a big issue and this is a problem that is carried into adulthood.

In 2007, Barry Popkin, who is a professor of nutrition and epidemiology, published a paper in Scientific American Journal. He published a paper on obesity called The World is Fat. He feels that people have gotten to this point of obesity by eating more and more saturated fats, dairy products and hard fat meats.

According to his paper, that there are now more obese people in the world than there are hungry people. The vastness of this statement is staggering when I think just how many hungry people are in the world. Many people who were starving 10 years ago are now obese.

We have become a generation that sits more and exercises less. Half the calories of many American are from sodas and fruit juices. Many are taking in more calories just by the liquid they consume than from the calories they consume.  People who were malnourished and starving 20-years-ago are not suffering from obesity.

The health concerns that are caused by obesity such as heart disease remains a big concern for governments all over the world. There is the real fear that obesity with cause the collapse of the health care system. Furthermore, some governments such as Mexico are thinking of taking a hard line on certain food and drinks that contribute to obesity, such as soda. They want to raise the tax on drinks and foods that contribute to obesity

Here in the USA taxes were raised on alcohol and cigarettes. There was a benefit to this action of reducing the use of these items somewhat. Can you imagine what the uproar would be here if the government announced that a new tax was to be added to the cost of soda?

Obesity is fast becoming the biggest healthcare problem not only in the United States but in other countries as well. This is evidence by the high costs of health insurance that keeps going up and up on our premiums. It remains to be seen if this problem will cause the collapse of our healthcare system.