Obesity

YOU live in an area of the country where there is a gross amount of wealth. Much of that wealth has come from giant companies interjecting chemicals into our food, along with drug manufacturers that wouldn't have the wealth without all the problems created by the other big companies.

You have most likely benefited from all the downsides of poor health of other Americans.
Poor heath/eating habits are a choice.
It's simple and cheap to eat healthy in the USA more than anyplace in the world, whether one choses too is another story.
But dont blame the food when the facts show the obesity epidemic as the fact.

It's simple stuff. Two meals a day with a couple fruits, no snack foods of any kind and only water too drink. Not only will the health of the poor greatly increase they will save a boat load of money doing it.
 
But NoVa has quite a bit more population density vs most of the rest of the state, hence the target on their back. Wife grew up in Nokesville...small world :)

Even with NoVA's population density it's nothing compared to, say, suburban Chicago. And with Virginia's "local composite index" method of school funding by the state, the folks in RoVA ought to be glad that NoVA is taking some of their property tax burden.
 
Your eating behavior is likely shaped by a variety of things. As others have mentioned, it is a choice and in fact you can eat healthy very inexpensively. In our house, it's a challenge with sweets and kids being picky. Your tastes often mature as you get older. Kids get addicted to sugary sweets quickly. I'm addicted to sugar and it's a PITA to break the habit. It takes a concerted effort that most are not willing to put in. But as seen by the data, it's pretty bad here to the point where it's really spilling over into the healthcare market and overall economy.
 
Your eating behavior is likely shaped by a variety of things. As others have mentioned, it is a choice and in fact you can eat healthy very inexpensively. In our house, it's a challenge with sweets and kids being picky. Your tastes often mature as you get older. Kids get addicted to sugary sweets quickly. I'm addicted to sugar and it's a PITA to break the habit. It takes a concerted effort that most are not willing to put in. But as seen by the data, it's pretty bad here to the point where it's really spilling over into the healthcare market and overall economy.
Healthy might mean different things to different people, but I would say by in large in our house we pay more with healthy food choices than we would going as cheap as possible. Healthy could mean low fat or healthy could mean no pesticides.
 
My state(PA) has it's own set of inbred health issues leading from well that to all that was described before. I have in my travels met many a person(s) from Pennsyltucky that believe the windmills on the turnpike cause cancer, smoking is perfectly healthy, and not bad for their children via second hand. I've also had conversations that even electric cars exhaust "toxic" heat on the road and craft beer is bad for you because it's dark. These are the things that concern them, not the coal plant next door, the fact their well water burns, or maybe the fact they keep voting a certain way and complain nothing changes because it's the opposing sides fault.

Trying to have a discussion with them who are most likely obese in some fashion would only insult what little intelligence they have a death grip on. IMO it all starts with education. You can't get someone to eat healthy or do anything else along this unless you can teach & make them use critical thinking to understand why it hurts them and how. I don't see that changing anytime soon and I'm usually an optimist.
 
In regards to health costs. When you are brought into an emergency room with a life threatening condition, they have to treat you. Regardless of your ability to pay.

There are a lot of people who don't realize this fact. It doesn't matter if you weigh 500 pounds and are going into cardiac arrest. Or if you're a degenerate drug dealer, or gang banger who just O.D.'d, or took a few rounds to the chest.

Or an illegal border jumper 9 months pregnant, who's water just broke all over the emergency room floor. You have to be taken care of. None of these people I just described will ever pay a dime of their bills. And they have a better chance of hitting the Powerball, than they do having health insurance.

So that means everyone else pays...... One way or another. Because it's a sure bet the hospital isn't going to eat it. They would be out of business in a week in some of these border towns, or low income inner cities.

This is why fewer and fewer people can afford health insurance. And why prescription drugs are getting more and more expensive. I'm not saying they should be turned away, or left to die. But the fact is they are an unfair financial burden on everyone else.

Sooner or later something is going to give. In this regard an obese fat slob having a coronary, and requiring $150K worth of immediate bypass surgery, is just as bad as the gang banger who got himself shot full of holes by nobody knows.
I have family who worked in the ER and had experience with morbidly obese patients. Think world record obese. Apparently it was incredibly difficult to perform surgery.
 
Seems appropriate. It has to be photoshopped.... Or else he's running 350 PSI in the tires.

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I think I knew this guy from way back. Seriously
 
I still eat some trash I shouldn't. I'd say fast food twice a week on average, but I have an active job most days. There are guys I work with that I would say are overweight, but I wouldn't call it a sedentary lifestyle. Maybe they're on the extreme end of the unhealthy eating, but I don't know for sure.
 
My thought after reading the first paragraph is perhaps health insurance should be rated like life insurance. Base it on risk. Shifting the costs to others leads to a lack of specific fiscal consequences.

There are other consequences, but if the guy who is 350# plus and whose only exercise is running off at the mouth and jumping to conclusions pays the same as the guy who weighs 160# and gets regular exercise, there may be a problem.

However, there are interests who simply want to spread the costs to others rather than build in some level of risk rating.
With respect to the cost for health insurance and as to whether you are a financial burden on the health care system? Well, the biggest health care cost factor, the elephant in the room as the saying goes, is not obesity but whether you are male or female. Females by a wide margin cost more in healthcare than males over their lifespan. But the powers that be have made it illegal to base health insurance premiums by birth sex. Society has just accepted this disparity as the untouchable third rail, more politically deadly then discussing government entitlement programs.
 
Females by a wide margin cost more in healthcare than males over their lifespan.
Females by a wide margin, cost more in most every aspect of life and human endeavour. (Usually to men, in one way or another). So as to them jacking up the cost of healthcare, that's simply par for the course.

They also on average live longer than men. So they have more time to generate costly problems within the healthcare system itself. As far as them paying more....... Good luck with that! Much like Krakatoa, you'll hear the noise 2,000 miles away.
 
Females by a wide margin, cost more in most every aspect of life and human endeavour. (Usually to men, in one way or another). So as to them jacking up the cost of healthcare, that's simply par for the course.

They also on average live longer than men. So they have more time to generate costly problems within the healthcare system itself. As far as them paying more....... Good luck with that! Much like Krakatoa, you'll hear the noise 2,000 miles away.
Men do more dangerous jobs and are less diligent regarding personal maintenance. (I.E. going to the MD and keeping up on things.)
Now the whole baby thing likely drives up the costs for women, but then another human being is also involved, so it's hard to put all of that in her ledger.
I'd like to see the data that compares men and women who are relatively diligent regarding personal health and their costs save the costs of pregnancy/childbirth which don't apply to men. (At least directly.)
 
You can literally eat anything you want, it is called a calorie deficit.

Weight loss is calories in vs calories out. Enjoy your Big Mac's people. Although you should be eating a healthy nutritional diet for long term health.
Came here to say this.

A hot enough fire will burn anything.
 
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