Calories Do Matter

I recently read a well-written TIME magazine piece on childhood obesity that reiterated to me how scary the obesity epidemic really is (the article can be found here). Scary because not only are we as adults overweight, but we are training our children to be just like us. I'm sure lots of people reading this are tired of the constant - nagging it seems almost - by medical professionals and news outlets regarding obesity. Truly, I suspect you will find yourself subconsciously saying, "yeah, yeah, we get it already," as you read this. Well do you? Certainly you've also seen, just as I wrote above, obesity tagged with the word epidemic more than once before. Is this a true statement or merely sensationalism the media often (read: always) uses?

What do I have to offer that is revolutionary? Well likely not much, other than my own experience, BUT if you have never seen the visual representation of how fat we are as a society, then keep reading. Below are CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) graphs of the U.S. adult obesity rates compiled for the last 20 years. In in the interest of time, I've only provided three: 1985, 1995, and 2005. For the full set visit the CDC's website. Quite impressive I must say.




Not so bad, eh?




Wait for it.....




Whether you are a visual learner or more numbers-based, the point comes across loud and clear (and no, more colors are not a good thing), we are one fat society.

Why does this matter? There are many, but my main concern are the TONS of health problems, ranging from mere nuisances to excess death, either caused or exacerbated by excess weight. I won't bore you by listing them all here, but knowing this and simultaneously viewing the grander scheme, it is easy to see the great weight (pun intended) this epidemic is placing on a healthcare system already in a broken state. It is well-known within the medical field that 90% of medical dollars are spent on 10% of the population. Certainly these individuals are not all obese, but if 30% of your population is obese and obesity causes greater health problems, I'd say thats a pretty causal relationship.

An interesting quote from the TIME article I mentioned above.
"A staggering 90% of overweight kids already have at least one avoidable risk factor for heart disease, such as high cholesterol or hypertension.... Health experts warn that the current generation of children may be the first in American history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents'."

The article doesn't list it's sources, so I can't guarantee the accuracy of their statements, but hey, its TIME and if you can't believe TIME, who can you? I can tell you that after being in the hospital more than anyone should be allowed this past year, seeing a patient who is actually of a healthy weight is uncommon and I immediately start thinking of possible etiologies for their immense nutritional deficiency.

7 days left of the 'tern life!