Obesity – It Gets Worse

The latest news on the nationwide obesity problem is discouraging, to say the least.   Maybe this shouldn’t come as surprise for a nation where fast food restaurants’ newest menu options include using fried chicken patties in place of bread to hold the double slices of bacon and cheese in place. Nor should it come as a surprise in an employer-sponsored health care system where employers and physically fit employees help subsidize the estimated $1,429 per person extra medical costs obese individuals are incurring.  But “double down” on this – you know that Healthy Population 2010 objective the U.S. Surgeon General established to encourage states to curb obesity prevalence among adults to 15%?  Not one state met the objective and overall prevalence of obesity has only widened, not narrowed.
Across the U.S., nearly a third of adults self-report themselves as obese.  Yes, self report…that means the actual prevalence is likely even higher.  And with the related increased health risks for the gamut of serious conditions, from coronary artery disease, hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, to cancer, one has to wonder what the downhill impact will be on an already unsustainable health care burden as these conditions take root.
As the CDC points out, “the problem of obesity is inherently complex, no single strategy has been determined as most effective.”  Changing unhealthy behavior isn’t simple.  That’s also why we’re relieved to see the Surgeon General’s vision of a Healthy and Fit Nation promoting the importance for comprehensive approaches – addressing both nutrition and physical activity, incorporating multiple settings (including work sites and social contexts) and placing emphasis on changing individual behaviors as well as the environments and policies that effect those behaviors.
As a society, we should all be alarmed at the ever increasing decline in health these obesity rates foretell.  As employers, we should be putting strategies in place right now to help stem them.