From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr Molly Rutherford –
At its last count, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 40 percent of U.S. adults age 20 and over, 21 percent of teens, and 14 percent of preschoolers are obese. A December 2019 study that analyzed 26 years of body mass index (BMI [the relation of weight to height]) data concluded that half of U.S. adults will be obese (BMI>25) by 2030. Some 25 percent will be severely obese (BMI>35).
And a recent mathematical model using 15 years if data published in the journal Diabetes Care, predicted a 700 percent increase of type 2 diabetes diagnoses in Americans under the age of 20 through 2060. Type 1 diabetes could also increase 65 percent among young Americans in the next 40 years. To save our children, we have to stop the current unhealthy trend.
Additionally, even when people living in “food deserts” were presented with healthy options, only 10 percentchanged their evil eating ways. Moreover, less than 5 percent of adults get the recommended 30 minutes a day of physical activity.
According to the CDC’s last comprehensive analysis, the annual medical cost of obesity in the United States to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers was $147 billion in 2008. And the medical costs for obese people were $1,429 higher than those of healthier weights.
A few weeks back, the television show 60 Minutes had a segment entitled “Obesity.” It turned out it was a 20 minute advertisement for pharmaceuticals. The takeaway was that overeating is not your fault and drugs can solve your obesity problem. This reliance on drugs is yet another way to strip us of our personal responsibility and turn us into slugs, dependent on others for our existence.
Now children are being groomed to be dependent on pharmaceuticals. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is now recommending that pediatricians provide “immediate, intensive obesity treatment to each patient” as soon as they receive a diagnosis. (Such patients are children and adolescents with overweight (defined as a body mass index [BMI] at or above the 85th percentile and below the 95th percentile) or obesity (defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile.)
The guidelines authors note that “watchful waiting” just allows children to get fatter. The guidelines suggest drugs and surgery in addition to behavioral and lifestyle treatment. The guidelines’ author in an interview with MedPage Today also chastised healthcare providers for their weight bias and their “misconception that obesity is a personal failing or matter of willpower, or ultimately a fault of the child and parent.” It is curious that the guidelines do not address prevention. The AAP says they will work on that in another guideline document. Wouldn’t you think that “an ounce of prevention is worth as pound of cure” applies with obesity.
Direct to consumer advertising has been around since 1985, but lately it seems that every ad on television is for a drug of some sort. Drug companies spent $7 billion on advertising last year, with most of that going to television ads. Even if you DVR your favorite shows you can’t escape flashes of one drug or another. Only your doctor can prescribe these drugs, so the purpose of the ads must be to train us to believe drugs are the solution to all of our health issues.
How do we square the notion that obesity is not your fault with all the warnings that our Western diet full of sugar, saturated fats, and carbohydrates as well as lack of exercise contribute to obesity.
Tonight, we will talk about an approach to living in good health with a friend of the show, Dr. Molly Rutherford.
