[stylist] 100 word poem, note, article

[Chris Kuell]

This poem is dedicated to my mother, whom I love dearly. Ever since I can 
remember, she's consumed 4 to 6 Pepsi's per day, or between 600 and 900 
useless calories daily. She's 75, around 350 pounds, and sees the doctor 
more than anyone I know. I wrote the poem back in January, when the muse 
visited and I was steeped with a feeling of vue ja de-that feeling that 
while something is familiar, it hasn't happened yet. Now seems like the time 
to post it.

Lori-nothing personal, but I was drawn and quartered the last time I offered 
a critique on this list, hence it won't happen again. In fact, after this 
post I'll be returning to the lurking zone.

Fat

Two out of three Americans are fat
One out of three is technically obese
Obesity related conditions cost Americans $150 billion per year
One hundred and fifty billion dollars
Per year
ten percent of the countries health care costs
Which drives up everybody's health care costs
Damn

What's to be done?
The government regulates drugs and cigarettes and liquor and toxins and 
hazardous waste and pollutants in our air and water to keep us safe
They regulate air traffic and road traffic and harbor traffic
But not guns or sugar
Which kill millions every year
Damn

It makes no sense.

C kuell 1/11/11

   *   *   *   *   *

Here's an article from ABC news that open-minded people who care about 
society and astronomical health care costs may find interesting.


The Cost of Obesity in the US:
$147 billion annually

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, July 27, 2009 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity in the United States now 
carries the hefty price tag of $147 billion per year in direct medical 
costs, just over 9 percent of all medical spending, experts report.
In fact, people who are obese spend almost $1,500 more each year on health 
care -- about 41 percent more than an average-weight person. Beyond those 
costs are the disability and early deaths caused by obesity, Dr. Thomas R. 
Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
said during a press conference Monday.
"Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are 
getting worse in this country, and they are getting worse rapidly," Frieden 
said. "The average American is now 23 pounds overweight."
Frieden's comments were made at the CDC's "Weight of the Nation" conference, 
held this week in Washington, D.C.
Between 1998 and and 2006, obesity rates in the United States increased 37 
percent and now one in three adults in the country are obese. Experts have 
long known the toll overweight takes on health, but the new report, 
published in the July 27 online edition of Health Affairs, outlines the 
financial cost of obesity.
"A normal-weight individual will spend about $3,400 per year in medical 
expenditures and that number rises to about $4,870 if that individual is 
obese," study author Eric Finkelstein, director, RTI Public Health Economics 
Program in Research Triangle Park, N.C., said during the press conference.
For people on Medicare, average expenses for a normal-weight person average 
about $4,700 a year, while costs for an obese person range about $6,400 
annually, Finkelstein said.
The biggest driver of these excess costs are prescription drugs, Finkelstein 
said. Among the normal-weight population, prescription drug costs average 
about $700 a year, but among those who are obese the cost rises to about 
$1,300 a year, an 80 percent increase, he said.
"For Medicare, the costs of obesity are about 72 percent greater just for 
prescription drugs," Finkelstein said. An obese person on Medicare is going 
to pay $1,400 in drug costs more a year than a normal-weight person, he 
said.
"Today's report demonstrating the clear link between rising rates of obesity 
and increasing medical costs is alarming, but not unexpected," Risa 
Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said 
in a statement. "Obesity is the driver of so many chronic conditions --  
heart disease, diabetes, cancer -- that generate the exorbitant costs that 
are crushing our health-care system," she said.
"The only way to show real savings in health expenditures in the future is 
through efforts to reduce the prevalence of obesity and related health 
conditions," Finkelstein said.
Hoping to turn the tide of the obesity epidemic, the CDC is taking several 
steps it hopes will alert people to the problem and get Americans to make 
the changes need to reduce obesity.
Among the strategies the CDC is promoting are making healthy food more 
available, promoting more choices of healthy foods, promoting 
breast-feeding, encouraging physical activity and creating sites in 
communities that support physical activity, Dr. William H. Dietz, director 
of CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, said during 
the press conference.
"These recommendations, I believe, set the foundation for the community 
interventions necessary to reverse this problem in the United States," Dietz 
said.

One of the biggest problems facing Americans is soaring consumption of soda 
and other sugar-sweetened drinks, which add almost 150 calories to the daily 
diet, Frieden said.
Frieden believes that taxing sodas and other sugar-sweetened drinks will 
help cut down on consumption and raise revenues that can be used to fight 
the obesity epidemic.
The upshot of Monday's meeting is that stemming the obesity epidemic is 
going to take a societal effort.
"Reversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual 
effort," Frieden said. "We did not get to this situation over the past three 
decades because of any change in our genetics or any change in our food 
preferences. We got to this stage of the epidemic because of a change in our 
environment and only a change in our environment again will allow us to get 
back to a healthier place," he said.
More information
There's more on obesity and health at the American Heart Association.
SOURCES: July 27, 2009, teleconference with: Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. 
director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Eric Finkelstein, 
Ph.D., director, RTI Public Health Economics Program, Research Triangle 
Park, NC; William H. Dietz, M.D., Ph.D., director, Division of Nutrition, 
Physical Activity, and Obesity, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention; July 27, 2009, Health Affairs, online