IT is always unpleasant to talk about personal habits and that’s not beneficial. Yet, as a global society we have no problem discouraging and even forcing through legal means the use of tobacco, alcohol and even prescription drugs.
However, when it comes to obesity, society is supposed to be more tolerant and accepting to the point of not bringing up the topic at all. No one should ever be accused of “fat-shaming” and, anyway, obesity is all personal and has nothing to do with society in general.
This is the situation. From studies in 2015, researchers estimate high body weight contributed to 4 million deaths globally. That is more than 10 times as many people who were murdered worldwide in 2015. An astounding 73 percent of Americans are overweight, to the extent that 40 percent of adult Americans are obese.
Traditionally, a person that is more than 20 percent over the ideal weight is considered obese. In realistic terms, that’s 100 million Americans who are lowering the entire nation’s life expectancy.
The US National Institutes of Health estimate that extreme obesity—defined as being more than 100 pounds overweight, a condition that affects 1 in every 16 Americans—can shorten life expectancy by 14 years. A recent study from Columbia University found that obesity accounts for nearly 1 out of every 5 deaths in the United States. That is more than 500,000 deaths every year. More than 5 million American children are already obese and will probably be so for their entire shortened lifespan.
And, ultimately, people who are too fat are driving health-care costs higher.
The Milken Institute is an independent economic think tank based in Santa Monica, California. An article in Science Daily based on a 2018 Milken study said this. “The impact of obesity and overweight on the US economy has eclipsed $1.7 trillion, an amount equivalent to 9.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. The estimate includes $480.7 billion in direct health-care costs and $1.24 trillion in lost productivity.”
This is not a developed country problem. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, over 10 percent of the entire world’s population is now obese, not just overweight but obese. That is more than 700,000 million people. In fact, the United States and the United Kingdom are two of the most economically rich and developed countries in the world. However, they are only ranked 12th and 36th, respectively, when compared to other nations.
The World Health Organization reports: “Today, for the first time in history, more people are dying from too much unhealthy food than they are from too little healthy food. This is a global epidemic.”
The obesity rate in the Philippines is comparable to China and Singapore at a low 6.4 percent and ranks far down the list at 186. However, when you consider that an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise are the primary drivers of obesity, these are problems for the upper economic classes even in the Philippines.
Image credits: Ed Davad