Originally Posted at Free Market Shooter
Recently, the CDC announced that America has made a new high; not in the stock market, but in obesity rates:
A troubling new report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that almost 40 percent of American adults and nearly 20 percent of adolescents are obese — the highest rates ever recorded for the U.S.
Many contributing factors have been blamed for causing and/or fueling the obesity epidemic, including, but not limited to: overeating, poor diet, physical inactivity, prescription medications, all the crap that is on grocery store shelves, toxic chemicals, diseases, and just plain old genetics. But while Obamacare certainly can’t be blamed for America’s ever-increasing obesity, the law has added fuel to the fire, and in a manner that has gone unnoticed by most Americans.
First, it is important to understand exactly what part of Obamacare has changed the health insurance equation; the requirement that individuals cannot be screened for pre-existing conditions or denied coverage on that basis. While it sounds like a “fair” and equitable idea to force insurers to cover the riskiest patients who need coverage the most, its method of implementation has certainly left “healthy” individuals with far higher premiums relative to their unhealthy counterparts.
I signed up for an individual health insurance plan in 2011, after Obamacare was enacted, but prior to its implementation. The plan complied with all ACA requirements, but insurers could still “screen” me using their existing process. I was asked a slew of questions; my age, gender, health history, and questions about my personal habits, including, but not limited to; gender, smoking status, alcohol consumption, exercise habits, risky hobbies (i.e. skydiving), and basically any other question you could imagine an insurer would use to quantify what my premiums should be.
After the ACA, the only questions an insurer can ask about a prospective patient are: age and smoking status. I was previously under the impression that under the ACA, insurers could charge higher premiums to women, as they use health services far more frequently than men, but “gender rating” is actually illegal under the ACA.
What does all of this mean? It means that all of those questions that insurers used to ask to quantify risk are now off limits:
Under Obamacare, many factors that influence healthcare expenditures are excluded from premiums. For example, premiums make no distinction for obesity, likelihood of having a baby, alcoholism or pre-existing conditions.
Before Obamacare, an insurer would have charged a much lower premium to the healthy guy, and a much higher one to the obese guy (if it chose to cover him at all). Without being able to assess the risk of individual customers, the healthy customer ends up paying more, while the obese customer ends up paying less.
Under Obamacare, a 30-year-old male, with a BMI of 18, who works out 5-6 days a week, eats as healthy as possible, and has absolutely no health problems whatsoever, ends up paying the same amount in premiums as a 30-year-old male who is 600lbs, eats two pizzas and drinks two 2-liter sodas daily, and has been previously told by his doctor that he needs to lose weight, or be at risk for heart disease and diabetes.
Ladies and gentlemen… this is how “socialized medicine” works in practice.
And, what makes this problem even worse? Skyrocketing obesity rates:
Healthy people end up paying for the associated health problems of their obese counterparts via higher premiums, and as obesity goes up…
…so do insurance premiums, as even the government’s own HHS website has been forced to admit:
- Average individual market premiums more than doubled from $2,784 per year in 2013 to $5,712 on Healthcare.gov in 2017 – an increase of $2,928 or 105%.
- All 39 states using Healthcare.gov experienced an increase in individual market premiums from 2013 – 2017.
- 62% of states using Healthcare.gov had 2017 premiums double what was measured in 2013.
- Three states – Alaska, Alabama, and Oklahoma – saw premiums triple from 2013-2017.
Zerohedge made an incredible observation about the obesity epidemic when this report was released…
The consequences of the obesity epidemic are devastating: High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke are not only killing millions of Americans annually — the obesity epidemic is also a humongous burden on the American health care system, making up $190 billion a year in weight-related medical bills.
…and summed it up succinctly with another quote:
Luckily, Obamacare socialized the medical cost of these bad habits…so enjoy those McDonalds fries and we’ll all share the cost of your blood pressure and cholesterol medications…it’s just more ‘fair’ that way.
Obamacare has socialized the cost of obesity by refusing to allow insurers to give incentives to customers to remain healthy, and to price customers according to their health risks. A record number of adults are forgoing health insurance in spite of the law’s mandate, and healthy individuals who do not “need” as much medical care as their obese counterparts are undoubtedly fueling the “opt-out” increases from Obamacare.
To be fair, the ACA didn’t start the obesity epidemic, but the law is without any cost impetus to change unhealthy behaviors. The law has all but thrown gasoline on the obesity problem, by bringing the costs of insurance for obese individuals down, and greatly increasing them for their healthier counterparts.
Of course, this fact is likely lost on Obamacare’s liberal defenders, most of whom likely have top-tier employer healthcare to insulate them from the reality of Obamacare’s failures.
That food looks pretty good to me, but he shouldn’t be drinking that IPA and eating at the same time. The drinking should always come first!
The burger in that picture looks good.
you beat me to it iska–
This country and in particular its health care is going to collapse–sooner rather than later. I look around at the obese masses and just know this is unsustainable. It used to be one would go out to the mall, or a sporting event and you would see a few obese folks, now if you are even somewhat thin or average you sense you are in the minority. And yes we are all paying for it, until we can’t. And then when the SHTF, there will be a culling of the herd. I don’t know or can envision a different outcome. Its like this country has become a real life slow motion horror film that gets worse and worse and you look around and see the masses trotting along in denial or obliviousness. Out.
Most answers found here…
We are what we eat and our healthy food is unhealthy now…
We are what we eat?Dammit,I am still a freaking pussy!
The answer to your question as to what you should be eating, is in your comment. It’s no calories and filing.
I don’t buy that Americans are fatter today because of ‘diet’. I eat the same foods I did as a kid when Americans weren’t ‘fat’. Steak, hamburgers, chicken, pork are the same meats we eat today. Potatos and pasta dishes, bread ( commonly white bread only 50 years ago) rice. Coke and Pepsi have been around for over a century. So have cakes and pies.
What has changed is the racial composition of ‘Americans’ and Latinos and other Third World peoples eating high calorie western foods. Toss in ‘labor saving’ devices even if nothing more than having to get up to change the TV station , ‘push’ a lawnmower , shovel snow off the driveway, ironing clothes and a hundred other things people had to do manually 50 years ago means consuming the same caloric intake of 50 or 60 years ago will, over a few decades, add blubber to the body.
Sloth & X boxes have something to do with obesity, but are not the whole story.
I think you need to do a little research into growth hormone, GMOs, & other such modern additions to the food chain before making a ridiculous blanket statement that… “Steak, hamburgers, chicken, pork are the same meats we eat today. Potatos and pasta dishes, bread ( commonly white bread only 50 years ago) rice. Coke and Pepsi have been around for over a century. So have cakes and pies.”
It just ain’t so.
Hispanics are the fattest people on the planet, and black women also fall into this category…
EC butthurt in 3, 2, 1…
As Miles Long noted, your meats are NOT the same. Most of it is full of hormones, antibiotics, and other shit. The food factory animals eat today are quite different … and you are what you eat ate.
Virtually 100% of ubiquitous wheat, corn, and soy has been GMOed in the past 50 years.
Pies? Do you read labels? Those pies are chemical factories of unpronounceable names and mystery ingredients.
Rest of your post is spot on.
@Stuck – I’m sorry my friend, but you are a little off base on this one. I’ll preface my rant by saying I do agree that our food supply has changed a lot over the years, but also that our companies are being held to a higher standard every day, and that the US has one of the safest, most effective food supply systems in the world. Maybe too safe and effective, give the topic at hand. Diving into the rant….
1 – There are no strains of GMO wheat approved for production in the United States. Most reports I’ve seen of GMO wheat have been cross-over contamination from adjacent fields or handling equipment. Given the sensitivity of the testing, and my own experience with trying to get US-wheat products through customs, cross over contamination seems most likely.
2 – The Veterinary Feed Directive (went live this January) severely curtails and dictates how the industry uses antibiotics. Farmers have to have a vet prescribe their herd/animals treatments and that vet can’t just be in a central location, they have to get eyes on the animals. Antibiotics in use by humans cannot be used for animals without being administered by a vet. There are a lot of other rules as well, but thats a few highlights.
3 – Chickens are hormone free. Hogs are hormone free. Beef cattle have to be off of hormones long enough that they do not test positive for hormones, either pre or post slaughter. I’m not familiar with dairy rules.
To me, 90% of the obesity problem comes down to one simple problem:
People are eating too fucking much.
As a society we have decided its ok to be fat, which stops the external pressures, and we have increased the amount of digital entertainment out there, which gives the ham planets and aspiring ham planets every excuse to stay inside doing nothing.
I don’t buy the “chemicals are at fault!!!!” idea, because a huge part of that is just labeling. Your food from the 50s and 60s would only have three things on the label because the labeling rules were so lax they could get away with murder by today’s standards. The same chemicals used today and worse were in your food before, you just didn’t know about it because they operated under a completely set of labeling rules than we do today.
1950s Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Ingredient List:
Macaroni (finest Semolina)
Kraft Grated: Sharp American Cheddar Cheese, with added skimmed solids, salt, sodium phosphate, and artificial color.
The macaroni is listed as a single ingredient whereas today they would have to break that out. Since I’ve covered this stuff before, I’ll go ahead and just tell you that they would say “flour” as the ingredient for noodles, thats it. Maybe “water” if their labeling guy was feeling snarky.
The US has fortified its wheat flour with b-vitamins since the 40s (thiamine-mononitrate, niacinamide, riboflavin, folic acid), so already we have four “scary chemicals” to add to the label and all we have changed is the labeling rules – its still the same product. You can tack on a few more things such as baking soda, etc to make the noodles.
Next up, the cheese. It says “cheese.” More goes into cheese than just…itself. Modern ingredient labeling requires manufacturers to also put the ingredients of things like cheese in there. So, “Cheese” turns into, “whey, milkfat, milk fat concentrate, salt, lactic acid, enzymes etc etc” and then a list of other preservative materials they use in production to keep things from turning rancid/aging correctly. Like citric acid or calcium phosphate. Props to the 50s list, because it does have sodium phosphate on there.
Lastly, “artificial color” is actually going to be a couple of colors, most likely chemically defined dyes. Those were very common back then. Things like “red 40” or “yellow 5”.
Modern companies have been moving away from chemical dyes towards things like paprika and turmeric to help reduced the scare factor, even though it changes the taste, which consumers hate even more than they do a label change.
The industry is not perfect, but the bulk of consumer concerns that get brought up time again start from a false understanding of their own starting point (things were better in the 60s!), and where we are today. As the Food Safety Modernization Act finally gets into full swing next year animal food suppliers will be operating in a safer, cleaner manner than even your best human food production facilities were even 30 years ago.
Today’s food IS different from food in the past because of inflation. Food companies have to keep the price to appear the same, but the cost of the ingredients has gone up. How do maintain the same “price” and still have the appearance of the same quality – cheap substitutes for the real thing. Just add HFCS, fillers, franken oils, etc. devised in a lab.
Not one person in 100 will notice the difference, and you maintain high profit margins. Who gives a rip if these frankenfoods are slowly killing everyone, that is what Obamacare is for, and the medical scam.
Sometimes it isn’t as much a matter of what you eat as it is of how much you eat relative to your age and level of physical activity.
As we age we tend to eat more without realizing it and we face slowing metabolism and less physical activity to mitigate it on top of it.
IMO, the MSG and HFCS in our food tend to accentuate this problem without our realizing the effect they are having on us as they do it. Get those two things our of our food supply and you would see a general improvement in overall public health without doing anything else.
But no one is interested in doing that, easier to just develop all kinds of fad diet foods that don’t work but that the obese public will pay excessive amounts to get in excessive quantities.
My Grandfather (who was rail thin) had a favorite and delightfully derogatory name for any and all fat bastards. To him they were all “pussguts.” He used this term whether talking about total strangers or immediate family. It was an equal opportunity insult directed impartially at all the chubby f***ers shambling around the environs of our hometown. The troubling thing is that the targets of his lacerating tongue were much fewer and farther between than they are now. He would be dumbfounded at the burgeoning number of “pussguts” to be found in present day America.
The proliferation of the American land whale (gigantus ignoramus pussgutias)
is the direct result of self delusion, appalling laziness, and the insatiable desire for instant gratification. American fatties simply each to much, move to little, and expect to not be the objects of derision. Nowadays, we are told that it is wrong to “body shame” someone. Well, excuse me but f**k that. Shaming is just what most of these endomorphic eating machines need.
Stuffing ones cavernous maw with crap food when one has been assaulted 24/7 by nanny state PSA’s telling you not to is the very definition of willful ignorance. Wondering why your knees and back hurt when you’re carrying a hundred extra pounds is the height of self-delusion.
The sheer number of these rotund reprobates infesting every corner of the country is stunning. They are everywhere…and they are getting bigger.
Here’s my novel solution to the problem of obesity in America…put down the fork, get off your ass, and move.
This is xrugger. The above is my post. Not sure why it came up as anonymous.
As a nurse who takes care of these sort of people. I have never seen anyone achieve 300 plus pounds without consuming large amounts of soda.
I grow, harvest, and preserve around 80% of the vegetables I eat. Growing your own produce solves two of the issues submitted in comments above. You know the food you’re growing is healthy and it gets you off your hiney. I have three gardens. They keep this old man busy, well fed, and slim. I try to do things the old timey way for the most part. I use a modified Three Sisters gardening technique (corn, beans, squash) on one of my gardens. Three Sisters was a gift to the early settlers from the American Indian. They also gave the settlers the green striped cushaw (sister squash). Cushaw are large and delicious (opinion). I primarily grow heirloom varieties in my gardens. Bloody Butcher for example, is my current choice for field corn. Heirloom varieties also provide seed for next year.
I’m no “green weenie,” but I don’t use poisons on my food. I use a homemade insecticide using cider vinegar, water, ground cayenne, and a touch of vegetable oil. There are many different versions available online. My insecticide doesn’t last as long, but no poison touches my food. None of that blasted glyphosate crap either.
Gardening allows you to eat healthier and to sweat that excess fat off of your hind end.
Let me introduce myself! Stucky is my name, and eating much WAS my game. I got to 318 pounds … and I NEVER drank sodas, or other sugary drinks.
Oh, and I ate healthy … cooked/baked almost everything from scratch.
So how did I get to 318?
As noted above …1) a sedentary lifestyle, not moving enough, 2) LARGE portions, 3) the wrong “healthy foods.
Regarding #3 … as of this past July 5th, I have eliminated wheat, corn, grains, and most beans. I’m now about 240 pounds (6’7” tall) and still going down.
Congrats on the weight loss Stucky.
Too much bacon has the same effect as too much soda.
Blame obesity on _________? Bullshit. If looking in the fucking mirror isn’t telegraphing the message that holy smokes, my gut is huge, then something is wrong in the command center.
There’s no one to blame but yourself. Period.
I see these disgustingly fat people and ask myself, gee when you weighed 250 didn’t you ask yourself hey, I better ease off. Or did you say, hell I’m good to go for 300?
Just don’t get fat in the first place. Do you have so little self esteem that it’s OK for you to destroy truly the only thing you own? If someone gave you a new 914, would you never change the oil and run low octane gas? Your body has the capacity to carry you to unimaginable heights on this side. Abusing it is insanity. It’s a gift from God and pouring crap into it is spitting in his face.
There’s a guy who posts here bemoaning the health costs that all of us pay for these morons and who recommends that these “subsidies” be stopped. I couldn’t agree more. If you don’t have the good sense to take care of yourself, WhyTF am I on the hook for your idiocy? A generation or two watching millions of fat fucks come to their timely ends might, and that’s a pretty big might, might mitigate some of this.
Up until the mid 1960’s fast food was rare ( tasty freeze–dairy freeze ), grocery stores were open from 8 am till 9pm. C stores did not exist. And, there probably wasn’t a vending machine where you worked.
Food wasn’t readily available and a bother to provide. Most men ate what their mother or wife cooked.
Now a quarter of the economy is built around getting you to eat more.
Let me be king and food ads disappear, drive in food purchase disappears, food may not be sold at ,in or by any business that sells anything else, the sale of anything made of corn or its derivatives ( in all forms ) is outlawed. You can eat corn itself-cob or kernels. And corn is banned as a feed stock from all ruminant food animals.
Also the sale of all cooked or prepared food is banned on Sunday and Wednesday. You may not choose to fast for 2 days a week ,but I will make it easier for you to do so. During WWII the death rate in Holland went down when he Germans took much of the dutch food supply.
You’re attacking this from the wrong end. Banning ads or some things on some days will only drive people that want to abuse themselves to become devious(see alcohol and drug prohibitions for effectiveness).
The great writer Balzac noted a long time ago, “willpower can and should be a just cause for pride…willpower is a victory constantly won again over instincts, over inclinations that must be disciplined…”
It all starts within.
Banning ads for smoking has been very effective.
Most people do not want to abuse themselves with food. It has become an easy part of the culture to do so.
Few people would consume a corn syrup sweetened drink if they had to make it themselves. The demand for sugar would rise, but so would the price–a lot. Soft drinks are an elastic product. ( ECON 102 )
The structure of the food industry up to about 1960 was one of the reasons why people were not fat. Food was hard to get , difficult to prepare, and, more expensive–in price and time to acquire.
Try willpower the next time you have diarrhea.
I had to bring a friend of mine to the ER Sunday morning for a bronchial infection in his lungs. Upon entering the ER we passed 2 doctors smoking, you’d think they know better.
How do I know they were doctors you ask?
One of them treated my friend as I sat in the room.
The only weight loss rule you need to know :
“Calorie input must be less than calorie output.”
The End.
Goofy,easy on the doctors.I roll me own smokes from friends grown tobacco,reason I have a few hand rolled smokes is,well……doctors orders,I am under a lot of stress!
Want your country to lose weight?
#1 – Stop subsidizing other people’s stupidity. That means letting insurers charge ham planets more, and also stopping all farm subsidies(caveat: dairies. I’m not as familiar with that industry).
#2 – Knock off the bullshit school rules and force kids to get out and play. Obese behaviors start young.
#3 – Its not cool or ok to be overweight. You consume too much of all resources relative to your production in life. Too much food. Too much sewer bill. Too much water. Too much clothing. Too much healthcare. Too much gasoline….the list goes on. Too much!
#4 – Stop making everything except digital entertainment illegal. The ridiculous barriers to entry for outdoor activities (including gardening or riding a bicycle in some stupid towns) means that people take the path of least resistance and end up just watching reality tv in their spare time.
90% of our issues stem from a nanny state obsessed with safety first, its own power second, and international opinion third. Our personal freedoms hardly crack the top 10 of that list, when it should be number one, written by an eagle in soldier’s blood into the forehead of ever politician whoever took office.
“Our personal freedoms hardly crack the top 10 of that list, when it should be number one, written by an eagle in soldier’s blood into the forehead of ever politician whoever took office.”
That, among other things written in blood on the politicians heads….