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The Need for Regulation: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic

What do you think we should do about the Obesity Epidemic?


  • Total voters
    68
I grew up in a poor family in the 60's, and we could afford medical care when we needed it. We didn't seek it when it wasn't necessary. We paid out of pocket, and it was doable, even for the poor.

Exactly. The routine cleaning, stitching and dressing for a wound would cost maybe $50, if not for massive amounts of insurance claims paperwork and payment delay that drive it up to $100. More time spent on actual medical care and less on clerical nonsense and billing would lower that cost a lot. I use a local clinic for 90% of my care and get a cash discount of about half what the insurance company ends up paying for the same lab procedure every month. I get a pharmacy cash discount and get my medications for 90 days at a time, instead of the insurance morons 30 day supply limit. Rules (that vary with many different insurance 'plans') and paperwork drive up the costs a lot, yet we seem to get more, not less of it with every gov't 'reform'.
 
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I use a local clinic for 90% of my care and get a cash discount of about half what the insurance company ends up paying for the same lab procedure every month. I get a pharmacy cash discount and get my medications for 90 days at a time, instead of the insurance morons 30 day supply limit. Rules (that vary with many different insurance 'plans' and paperwork drive up the costs a lot, yet we seem to get more, not less of it with every gov't 'reform'.

A couple of years ago, I needed to see a doctor for a minor, but common infection, and I have insurance. Since I rarely go to a doctor, I don't have a primary care physician, and I didn't want to go to the ER where I work, because there would have been many unnecessary expenses, and it would have ended up costing much more than it's worth, so I went to a local minor emergency clinic. In and out of the door in 15 minutes, script that cost $4, for $70 total cost. They don't take insurance of any kind. It's a cash only business, and I was elated to pay 70 dollars just for the convenience and the speed with which I got out of there.
 
People who place the blame squarely on the obese are ignoring some important factors, like the garbage they put in food at the super market thanks to subsidies for HFCS, poverty ($ menu), lack of free time to exercise. Yeah, we could emphasis healthy living to some extent at earlier ages. I saw a food pyramid like once in school, and PE was a total joke, but as far as regulations I'm more in favor of banning unhealthy crap that goes into the food. Seriously HFCS is everywhere, even in bread and yeah, it causes obesity. If you read the ingredients on the back, usually it's like a paragraph long. I've also heard of shady methods like taking tomatoes out of the ground when they're still green and coloring them red, but I don't know if that's true or not.

When you start talking about forcing people to exercise, that is never going to happen. People in the Midwest at least, I can assure you they'd rather take a bullet than work out. The one thing politicians can always count on to keep the masses in their place is when they're sitting on their asses watching TV all day.
 
Ive always kinda figured natural selection would take care of the obesity epidemic.
 
I grew up in a poor family in the 60's, and we could afford medical care when we needed it. We didn't seek it when it wasn't necessary. We paid out of pocket, and it was doable, even for the poor.

It isn't the 60's. I grew up then as well. Know about those clinics you mentioned as well. And I tell you, what I said is correct.
 
Bartering isn't so well doable anymore, though I would see no wrong with it if you could work it out. But as medical technology advances, the aggregate cost is of course going to go up. It's part and parcel with having an advanced society. This **** takes money. But if you like all the perks of technology, you gotta pay for the infrastructure to support it. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Technology means educated people, more and more people will have to go to college to support it. It means paying for the research that will ultimately yield new tech, and this can no longer be done by private enterprise alone (particularly base research). It means paying for the engineers, it means certain social programs which can benefit us all through multiple phenomenon. There are multiple ways in which you can pay for it. You can use our current method of funding healthcare, the ass backwards way, which leaves you paying the most for and having the least access to healthcare. But IMO that seems rather stupid. However, in the end it must be paid for. If you like that cell phone, then you're gonna have to pay. And that don't just mean paying Verizon a few hundred bucks for a phone. You have to support everything that goes into making it. The science didn't just poof into existence, the tech didn't develop itself. You have to pay for it all. Cost of technology.

When it comes to healthcare, I think the proper solution probably lies in some mixture of State and Private business. Not so much like Obamacare, since that's exactly the opposite of what you want to do (and one reason to distrust government in total in terms of them actually coming up with and agreeing to an intelligent solution. Our government may produce a lot of stuff, but intelligence ain't one of them).

Depending on how you mean that mix, I don't think we disagree. The most objectionable part of the recent reform came a rejection of more reasonable options. The doctors I speak to suggest of a two teired system in which you have a single payer for adequate basic health care, and those who want more and can afford it pay for more. This seems reasonable to me. Already much R&D goes through the government at research hosptials (government supported). There is really no reason to stop this.
 
This has become a generational issue now. Many obese parents have obese kids. Why? Because they've conditioned their kids to eat that way.

Its caused by cheap good tasting food that's easier and quicker to access and if you add in the lack of willpower and lack of desire to learn better eating habits you end up with an obese person.

I don't think taxes are the way to go because you penalize responsible people like me who indulge in junk food from time to time. I would like to see a switch to cheap decent tasting healthier alternatives. Stop subsidizing corn and subsidize healthier alternatives.

We also need to do a better job at teaching kids nutrition. Most of the information that people get is outdated and many times inaccurate. Especially when it comes to weight loss. I've spent many years involved in nutrition, weight loss, and health and there is so much garbage information and outright misinformation out there it makes me sick.h
 
Depending on how you mean that mix, I don't think we disagree. The most objectionable part of the recent reform came a rejection of more reasonable options. The doctors I speak to suggest of a two teired system in which you have a single payer for adequate basic health care, and those who want more and can afford it pay for more. This seems reasonable to me. Already much R&D goes through the government at research hosptials (government supported). There is really no reason to stop this.

If we were to earnestly seek a form of nationalized health care, that is the system I've endorsed. It is the most rational one I've come across that addresses many of the problems. You could do it through regulation of the insurance industry through the government as well; but either or you're paying. May as well do it right (though that is certainly not the motto of our government). I don't trust government in the least to do something of the sort. What I expected is what we got; a give away to the insurance companies. One of the major hurdles is that we cannot coherently and intelligently discuss this issue on aggregate. It immediately turned into "OMG...SOCIALISM!!!!!" and "OMG....DEATH PANELS!!!!!!!". Right down the drain. There's a real issue here. There is a way we can intelligently use the government such that we all pay less for and have more access to healthcare. Seems to me to be win/win. But you have to be able to have the discussion and debate first without resorting to fear tactics (our government's favorite tactic).
 
If we were to earnestly seek a form of nationalized health care, that is the system I've endorsed. It is the most rational one I've come across that addresses many of the problems. You could do it through regulation of the insurance industry through the government as well; but either or you're paying. May as well do it right (though that is certainly not the motto of our government). I don't trust government in the least to do something of the sort. What I expected is what we got; a give away to the insurance companies. One of the major hurdles is that we cannot coherently and intelligently discuss this issue on aggregate. It immediately turned into "OMG...SOCIALISM!!!!!" and "OMG....DEATH PANELS!!!!!!!". Right down the drain. There's a real issue here. There is a way we can intelligently use the government such that we all pay less for and have more access to healthcare. Seems to me to be win/win. But you have to be able to have the discussion and debate first without resorting to fear tactics (our government's favorite tactic).

I agree completely. But we all too often can't even have the discussion. Sadly.
 
The irony is that government subsidies to corn (used in high fructose corn syrup, thus lowering the price of corn syrup) and import quotas on sugar (raising the price of sugar) has led to an increase in high fructose corn syrup in all American food instead of sugar. And high fructose corn syrup is more likely to cause obesity and type II diabetes than sugar.

Government intervention created conditions that make people more likely to get fat. So now we need government intervention to make getting fat illegal. When will people learn.

Forcing people to be healthy is reminiscent of the Volksgemeinschaft mentality in Nazi Germany.
 
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There is no "obesity epidemic".
 
I think there are a few things that can be done:

1) Roll SNAP into WIC with SNAP having the same strict restrictions as WIC has (meaning, nothing but the healthiest stuff)
2) Tax sugary stuff, the tax goes to paying for things such as a states school lunches
3) End subsidies for things such as corn
4) Subsidize or put more incentive to farmers to grow healthy vegetables and fruits, as well as make it cheaper for chicken and fish farmers to continue.
 
I said nothing of the sort. I can't make anyone exercise though, their choice. Choices have consequences and one such consequence is being mocked for certain grotesqueries.
In fact, your mockery could be detrimental. Many people, mostly women, overeat from anxiety, which your comments could inflame. Just sayin' ...
 
There is not an easy answer to this. It isn’t a simple matter of lacking willpower. We are expecting people to go against biology. We evolved to eat all the sugar we can. For the vast majority of our existence as humans, sugary foods were not in over abundance. Sugar tastes good to us because it was important to our survival that we consumed as much of it as we could when we came upon it.

The availability of sugar has changed in recent generations, but our biology hasn’t. This is going to be a much more difficult problem to beat than tobacco use. We aren’t born desiring tobacco. We are asking people to beat a habit that they were born with.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t know the stats, but my guess would be that most people don’t become obese from eating unprocessed food that they cook at home. Some may, but I am guessing most people become obese from eating cheap, convenient fast food and packaged processed items. Most of those things are high in calories and low in nutrition. I don’t know if extra taxes will solve that problem.

Something I think would be more effective, yet more intrusive, would be to actually pass laws dictating how much of certain ingredients food manufactures can put in their food. It wouldn’t stop people from making their own food how they want, but it would affect what you could sell to others. But that idea makes me a bit uncomfortable.
 
We need federal agents assigned to every American to regulate everything we do! :scared:
 
There are several positive things that can be done to curb obesity and none of them involve regulation or taxation. Most of them will take a generation or more to become effective but we didn't get here overnight and we can't fix it overnight, either. First off, make sure the upcoming generation knows how to eat right and live right, because this isn't just about diet. Second, society as a whole must reject poor ingredients in processed foods. If better ingredients makes them more expensive then so be it, extra taxes not required. Third is about changing societal patterns to bring walking back into our lives. So many people simply don't walk anywhere anymore, other than from a door to a car and vice-versa. We need to change the face of our communities so that parking isn't so convenient and residential is within reasonable walking distance of retail and mass transit. Fourth and the only one that will affect things immediately, calories on menus and continue to support the FDA in keeping food label servings more in line with what people actually eat.

There is not an easy answer to this. It isn’t a simple matter of lacking willpower. We are expecting people to go against biology. We evolved to eat all the sugar we can. For the vast majority of our existence as humans, sugary foods were not in over abundance. Sugar tastes good to us because it was important to our survival that we consumed as much of it as we could when we came upon it.

The availability of sugar has changed in recent generations, but our biology hasn’t. This is going to be a much more difficult problem to beat than tobacco use. We aren’t born desiring tobacco. We are asking people to beat a habit that they were born with.
All too true and, sadly, something few understand.

There are other significant genetic issues here as well. For example, people with northern ancestry may tend to put on fat in the fall and loose it in spring. This isn't a self-control issue, it's genetics. Their ancestors survived because of the extra insulation in winter. Nothing can be done about this and no amount of social pressure will change it.
 
What we have to understand and accept..is that there are many americans that DONT KNOW HOW TO EAT healthy...theyve been eating chit since they were able to open their mouth....if you had parents that stuck sugary drinks in your face since you can remember...or parents that had HORRIBLE eating habits since you were born and thats what you ate all your life...your not going to change I dont think.

My parents have horrible eating habits. My mom eats fast food for every meal.

Last night for dinner I had grilled pork tenderloin and a salad. I didn't need the government to step in to teach me how to eat healthier than my parents.

Id bet a dozen donuts that if you handed half of america...an artichoke, a turnip a fresh Beet and said cook these for me...they would looked confused. If you never aquired a tasted for fresh vegetables and fruits and your parents gave you chit your entire life...you are not going to start eating veggies and fruit...

Except I know for a fact that isn't true since I myself have begun developing a taste for fresh vegetables and fruit. Granted, you picked three veggies I dislike, but give me some fresh spinach, arugula, broccoli, carrots, etc. and pretty much any fruit and I'm a happy guy.
 
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My parents have horrible eating habits. My mom eats fast food for every meal.

Last night for dinner I had grilled pork tenderloin and a salad. I didn't need the government to step in to teach me how to eat healthier than my parents.





Except I know for a fact that isn't true since I myself have begun developing a taste for fresh vegetables and fruit. Granted, you picked three veggies I dislike, but give me some fresh spinach, arugula, broccoli, carrots, etc. and pretty much any fruit and I'm a happy guy.



How can you say its not true tucker than just use yourself as the example...your just one person..and 1 doesnt represent the many.
The proof of that is we really do have an obesity epidemic..and too many people eat trash food like McDs...but I dont advocate govt intervention...actually I was more stating that govt intervention wont help..
 
How can you say its not true tucker than just use yourself as the example...your just one person..and 1 doesnt represent the many.

Because your claim was universal. Only one exception is required to point out that a universal claim is inaccurate.

The proof of that is we really do have an obesity epidemic..and too many people eat trash food like McDs...but I dont advocate govt intervention...actually I was more stating that govt intervention wont help..

Gotcha. I can agree with the problem being people eating too much crap. I'm of the belief that any government intervention will exacerbate instead of alleviate the problem. We're in a society that has forsaken the concept of personal responsibility.

The problem is that people who blame their parents for their bad eating habits today are going to be the ones that their own children blame for their bad eating habits tomorrow. In order for the cycle of victimization to end, people have to own up to their own part in things and make the decision to eat healthier, not for their own sake, but for their children's sake. Blaming people for one's own failings doesn't get **** fixed. Owning up to your mistakes and making an effort to change things does.

But I have absolutely no faith in our society to do this.

I've working on a re-imagining of Juvenal's famous "bread and circuses" critique of Roman Society to relate it more to modern US society.

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our responsibilities; for the People who once upon a time took care of themselves, their children, their homes, — everything, now blame their failings on imaginary boogie men and anxiously hope for just two things: Fast food and Reality TV.

It's a work in progress, but I think it's really starting to get a handle on today's America.
 
I don't know.
The "freedom" to be unhealthy is important, I think.
Also these unhealthy will use up far less social security..ouch....
Being healthy must be a choice, not a dictate.....The root cause of this problem is that we are not mentally healthy.
"Fast food" and Reality TV ??
We cannot afford "fast food" and have no interest in this Reality stuff, whatever it is....
Its a matter of taste...these have no taste...and only negative outcomes..
Thus, I think the so-called sin tax may be the answer - part of it -
.The long term answer ,IMO, is education, and being mentally healthy.
 
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1. Better food education in schools. Better school meals. This fight starts in the home and in schools.

2. High taxes on fatty foods. Like it or not, the food industry makes a lot of fatty unhealthy cheap foods and it is costing society in all countries billions in health issues.

People are free to do whatever they want with their bodies, but to do the wrong thing will cost you on the wallet.
 
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