Posted on 08/11/2007 11:03:25 PM PDT by neverdem
We do not have a health care crisis in this country - we have a health crisis with a health care system incapable of dealing with it.
Consider the fact that 75% of the $2 trillion we spend on health care goes toward treating the symptoms of chronic disease, and not toward preventing disease in the first place. Imagine if we were to reverse that model by focusing on prevention, wellness, and early testing, all of which are undervalued and poorly supported today. We would save countless lives, pain and suffering by the victims of chronic conditions, and billions of dollars. Realizing this potential will not be easy. It will require a fundamental transformation of a health care system focused on acute care into one focused upon maximizing individual health as our first priority.
Our vision should be to have the healthiest people, not just the best health care, in the world.. With prevention and wellness as the cornerstone of our health policy, we can be number one in both.
For example, according to the World Health Organization, by not smoking, eating healthier diets, and exercising, we could prevent 40% of cancers, 80% of Type-2 diabetes, and 80% of heart disease and save hundreds of billions of dollars every year just from these prevention methods alone. But much more than money is at stake here. If we continue down our current path of ignoring the consequences of unhealthy lifestyles including poor diet and lack of exercise, one-third of our children will develop diabetes, a debilitating and deadly condition. For the first time in our history, a generation of...
--snip--
Our current employer-based system, which was originally adopted as a way around wage and price controls during World War II, almost totally removes the consumer from normal free market practices.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
but over 30 BMI...there’s a limit to how much muscle and bone you can build up per a certain height.
Now maybe the formula could take into account shoulder length...I have broad shoulders...I know what this feels :)
Or perhaps another way would be to measure waist size.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325150149.htm
“Natural selection is only going to weed out those that can’t survive long enough to reproduce. The diseases that obesity causes occur way after people stop having children.”
I was typing too fast. You are correct about this.
It used to be that the weaker and infirm would succumb to different types of infectious diseases, many times in very young ages. That is not the case so much anymore.
But a selection of sorts is taking place at a much older age now. Many people are living with chronic health conditions that take away much of the quality of life, or they are dying early from heart attacks and such. Most of these types of conditions are caused by incorrect nutrition and lifestyle.
well if there is any selection it would probably be in the health care system. So we’ll probably see more insurance companies denying coverage to overweight people.
There simply is no cut-and-dried formula that works for all individuals. I am six four and currently weigh about 265 bone dry and naked as a jaybird. There are doctors walking around who are much lower on the BMI scale who will tell me that I am obese and all the while they have more gut hanging over the belt than I ever have had. I have a younger brother who has a much smaller bone structure and even though he is 2 inches shorter than me he wears jeans with a 36 inseam and I wear 34 inseam. I cannot buy coveralls because they don’t make them long enough between shoulder and crotch to fit me. My brother can weigh 40 pounds less than I weigh and still have more actual fat on him than I do! There are huge variations in the human frame which are not accounted for by BMI. I have seen men who make me look small framed, what are they to do, walk around with every bone showing through the skin?
Check the figures, Mike Tyson was probably obese or nearly so in every fight he ever won if you judge solely by BMI!
There is a simple way to check frame size. If you wrap thumb and index finger around the wrist and the two ovrlap you have a small bone structure, if they just meet you have a medium bone structure, if (as in my case) there is a sizable gap between the tip of the finger and the thumb you have a large bone structure. If you have the large bones, are relatively short legged and long armed as I am and have a large head and thick neck as I do you are going to look like a stick if you are not overweight by the weight charts. I have walked around at a weight of 240 and actually had people ask me how I stayed so skinny! When I was young and actually was within the chart range people made fun of how skinny I was and this was back in the sixties when the heavy people looked skinny compared to most people today!
By the way, at age 63, my blood pressure is usually around 115 over 65 with a resting pulse rate of about 65. Three times a week I go to the local Y and work out for an hour or more in the weight room after a 12 minute warm up on the elliptical trainer. I used to work out for two hours but my wife (age 55) goes with me and she was having to sit and wait for an hour so I cut back. On other days when the temp is not over ninety degrees I like to ride my mountain bike or hike up and down the small hills here (there are no big hills or I would hike them). Does that sound like obesity to you? Be careful how you listen to doctors, they kill a lot of people unintentionally!
Come see me! If you are below the maximum on the weight chart for your height I will carry you around piggyback for a while!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.