Unhealthy habits are what's killing us

[The Straight Story]

For all the money Americans spend on health care (60 percent more per person than any other advanced country), Americans are not an especially healthy people.

snip

One-third of Americans are overweight. That one single fact accounts for almost 10 percent of all health care spending. At any given moment, one out of six motorists is unbelted. American children are nine times more likely to be injured in a gun accident than children in other developed countries.

If all Americans quit smoking, if everybody wore a seat belt, if gun owners consistently secured their weapons, if we all drank in moderation and abjured illegal drugs and if the one-third of the country that is overweight would drop the extra pounds, those individual actions would do more to improve health and extend lives than any contemplated by Congress or the president.

Acting on this information won't be easy: It violates too many taboos. Americans understandably treasure their right to make their own choices, including the choice to super-size it. And many are uncomfortably aware that self-destructive behavior is most often found among the poor and among minorities: Black women are more than three times as likely as white women to be severely obese.

In the near term, public policy can achieve only a limited impact against these problems. There is evidence that youth obesity can be reduced by zoning rules that forbid fast-food restaurants to be sited within 200 yards of a school. More and better gym classes, better cafeteria menus and a ban on soda in schools would all help too.

Over the longer term, we will have to rethink the deeper structure of American food policy: subsidies to corn and soybean growers, the paving over of exurban land that might provide nearby cities with less expensive fruits and vegetables.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/28/frum.unhealthy.habits/index.html

[valerief]

1. More HFCS in our food! Yay! nt

[no_hypocrisy]

2. There's more.

You try to eat healthy by consuming corn and soy products (edame, tofu) and you can't because a majority of the crops are genetically modified and decisive evidence has not been presented to prove their safety.

[Nikki Stone1]

3. And there is no way to know if they are genetically modified or not.

.

[NoNothing]

10. Yeah, well

Decisive evidence has not been presented to prove their danger, either. Since no plausible scientific theory has been advanced as to how they could be negatively impacting human health, I'm going to suggest we focus priorities on known problems.

[damntexdem]

14. But there is decisive evidence that consumers are kept in the dark.

So they can't make their own choices.

[RedEarth]

4. We've become addicted to salt, fat and sugar.

Avg american consumers about 4,000 mg of sodium each day. The CDC & AMA both say 70% of americans should consume no more than 1,500 mg/day.

WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MDMarch 26, 2009 -- Americans already eat way more than the recommended amount of salt, and now the CDC finds that even lower recommendations apply to 70% of us.

New data show that the average U.S. adult consumes one-and-a-half teaspoons of salt every day. That's a half teaspoon more than the basic daily recommendation of one teaspoon (about 2,300 milligrams of sodium).

But the recommendation is much lower for people with high blood pressure, people over 40, and all African-American adults. These groups should be eating no more than two-thirds of a teaspoon of salt (about 1,500 milligrams of sodium) per day.

More than two out of three Americans -- some 145.5 million of us -- are in those categories, the CDC now calculates.

Seven out of 10 U.S. adults get 2.3 times the healthy amount of salt. It's putting us in a world of hurt, says Darwin Labarthe, MD, PhD, director of the CDC's division for heart disease and stroke prevention.

"This is a very important message," Labarthe tells WebMD. "There is no room for debate any longer that a high level of salt causes stroke and heart disease, and that lowering salt intake will diminish these very serious health consequences."

When you eat salt, your blood pressure goes up. And high blood pressure dramatically increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. Recent studies definitively show that people who eat too much salt significantly increase their risk of stroke and heart disease.


Where's all that salt coming from? No, it's neither the salt shaker on the table nor the box of salt next to the stove.

"Most of the salt in our diet comes from processed and manufactured foods," Labarthe says. "Only a small fraction comes from salt added to food at the table or to home cooking."

The American Heart Association says up to 75% of our sodium intake comes from processed foods such as tomato sauce, soup, condiments, canned foods, and prepared mixes.

Salt isn't the only high-sodium chemical in our diet -- there's also baking soda, baking powder, and MSG. And on food labels, you'll see it in a myriad of other ingredients such as disodium phosphate, sodium alginate, sodium benzoate, and so on.

http://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20090326/too-much-salt-hurting-two-thirds-of-americans

[kimmerspixelated]

18. Plain table salt isn't optimal for health.

Sea salt, unrefined is much better for you. We need salt. We don't need crap. Alternative Health doctors think that refined salt may cause BP problems. Pure salt does not. This applies to the other things as well. Purified sugar, honey, agave aren't near as bad as regular refined sweet stuff. As far as fats, there's definitely the good fats. By now we should all know to avoid the hydrogenated oils. Conversely, pure organic butter is better for you than margarine. Olive oil is great. Pure virgin coconut oil is really great-Garden of Life Brand!! Bottom line- it is the type of all those things that matters!

[varelse]

5. David Frum on "personal responsibility"

He does make a good point about corn and soy subsidies and other counterproductive public policies, but still... our health spending isn't accounted for solely by "bad habits".

[laughingliberal]

6. Improving our health with better habits is a fine idea

It is difficult to implement. A horrible counter to that which is not proper to bring up is that, whereas the bad habits increase health care costs, a lot of those costs (although not all) are saved on the back end in SS payouts to those who die younger.

Not to worry, though. Bush' last minute executive order giving your employer the right to your PHI combined with one of the provisions in the new HCR bill will allow employers to force you to cover more of your premium costs if you fail to meet their guidelines like lowering your cholesterol. losing weight, quitting smoking.

[notadmblnd]

7. News Flash: Living Causes Dying

This just in: Scientists have recently discovered - If everything you eat is organic, if you don't over eat, don't smoke, don't drink or do drugs. If you don't live near high power lines or pollution, if you have the best job, health care and exercise with regularity- You will still die.

[The Straight Story]

8. Help stop Death, America's # 1 killer - donate now!

:evilgrin:

[notadmblnd]

9. Lol

[damntexdem]

15. It's that dihydrogen monoxide we keep ingesting.

Anyone who has ever ingested it has finally died.

[Fla_Democrat]

16. Tim Simpkins

R.I.P. Superman. :cry:


http://www.jonnyjpeg.com/Tim%20Simpkins%20page.htm

[bigwillq]

22. LOL!

:rofl:

[Alcibiades]

11. What a moron!

Do we smoke less than the French? Why do the same procedures cost more here than anywhere else in the world?

The fact of the matter is that personal responsibility does drive the cost of the health care system, but not in the way Frum, who thinks in purely ideological terms, believes it does: health care executives are personally responsible for the high cost.

[whistler162]

12. What is killing us is.....

living! Every day you live is one day closer to your death. So stop living and you will live a very long time!

[damntexdem]

13. Hey, you left out physical activity.

If they could make exercise into a pill, it would be called a wonder drug.

[Mumble]

17. Stop the war against SMOKING!

People who stopped smoking are now the new obese class. They were thinner and healthier when they smoked. This is the number one reason for why so many people are obese today. The government is hiding the true facts from everybody and food industry is slowing killing people. Smoking was better for you.

[badgerpup]

19. It isn't just humans...

Tangential, but sorta on-topic...
:rant:
Was doing my X-mas shopping- going to have the celebration at a friend's house. She has furkids...two little dogs, and I include them in my gift list.

There were no rawhide 'chews' left that were small enough for a little dog, so I'm looking for 'healthy' (i.e., no corn, sugar, corn syrup etc. in the ingredients) doggie snacks. Little Watson was recently diagnosed with diabetes, so he's on a restricted diet.

Look at the ingredients...:wtf:
Corn, soy, wheat, high-fructose corn syrup...maybe about #3 or #4 down the list of ingredients is ANYTHING resembling 'meat'...and half the time THAT'S only for flavoring!
:nuke:
Finally managed to find some dried 'chicken tenders'...dessicated chicken strips with no sweetening or other flavor enhancement...

But it struck me that the ingredient list on the doggie treats reads a helluva lot like the ingredient list on any number of munchies that are considered suitable 'for human consumption'; in fact, the packages were labeled that humans should NOT chow down upon the contents.
Hard to tell the difference, if we're going just by the ingredients. Fortunately, the packaging is a dead giveaway; most human-type munchies don't have imbecilic, demeaning pictures of the target consumer. :sarcasm:


No wonder we've got a rising incidence of obesity, diabetes and other such-like disorders in our furkids as well as ourselves...:grr::banghead:

[Chulanowa]

20. I would edit your ideas

If people smoked appropriately they would do much better. It's not the tobacco, it's the chemicals involved in processing it, the additives to flavor it, the bleach and the preservatives and the glues and the dyes in the paper and filter, the particles of the filter, and also the design of cigarettes. They're small and loose-packed, so they burn away fast, encouraging much larger consumption.

Constant smoking from pipes and cigars isn't exactly healthy, but if you gotta smoke, these are healthier than cigarettes.

Mankind has been smoking and drinking since the first day we burned leaves or ate rotten fruit. It's the scale of use and quality of product that's killing people these days.

The same goes for our food. Americans have huge meals with lots of meat and starch, with sweet snacks scattered in between, and our high-stress low-leisure lifestyle encourages our body to make more fat while consuming less of what it stores. Add in the fact that our foods are full of waxes, dyes, colorings, flavorings, sweeteners, and other filler that our bodies do not consider food (we can't make good use of fructose, for example) and even the very act of eating puts stress on the body and encourages more fat storage and hormonal shifts.

It all comes down to the core of our lifestyle - we're addicted to growth. We need an ever-skyrocketing production of food for an ever-increasing population, on an eternally-shrinking area of land.

All the problems come towards overpopulation and mismanagement of land.

[WeCanWorkItOut]

21. Longer vacations would help. You might only lose a few pounds a week, but

over a decade, it comes to 35 lbs: the difference between
normal and fat. That's the amount you might lose
(or not gain) over a decade of three weeks a year
of fun vacations, of course.

The problem is that the labor unions let the price of health care
go up, and gave away vacations to pay for it.
Silly unions.

I mention the unions in particular, because I can think of so few
smart politicians who are really on the side of their constituency.

(Smart politicians? In America?)