1.21.10
I saw this headline on Bloomberg today:
Heart Risk in One-Fifth of U.S. Teenagers Found by Lipid Tests
Bottom line – American kids are too fat. And this will have sweeping consequences not only for our nation’s overall health, but also the future (and current) cost of medically treating all of the symptoms (my favorite analogy is the guy who pops cholesterol-lowering medication as he heats eggs and bacon for breakfast – you all must know someone who does that!). That being said, one of the factors that significantly drives up our health care costs today is the percentage of ‘self-inflicted’ wounds incurred by Americans of all ages. What are these “self-inflicted” wounds?
1. heart disease
2. type 2 diabetes-related disorders and health problems
3. stroke
4. obesity-related health issues
I occasionally will discuss the work of Dr. John McDougall on this site. He is one of those experts that is often mocked by establishment because he speaks of what is obviously true – our western high-fat diet causes many of our help problems. We have health problems here in the US that would shock people in other parts of the world. Do you think people in Japan have as high a rate of type 2 diabetes as people in the US? many of our health issues are nearly non-existent in most countries.
A Current Issue
This is also an issue that few want to bring up in the health care debate because elected officials would never want to force people to be more responsible for their own health care – but it is the truth. If we changed our primarily western diet to a lower fat, more natural, grains/vegetables/legumes-based plan, then we would experience much lower rates of obesity, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes.At least health plans could offer discounts for people who take care of themselves. It seems that the only poor health choice that is politically ok to punish is smoking – eating chocolate bars and fried food 7 days a week is not to be discussed…
References:
Dr John McDougall discusses Diabetes – see site for more topics discussed such as obesity, high cholesterol, etc and a list of further references.
