Thursday OpEd

 According to healthcare statistics, almost 72% of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight...  40% are obese...

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), someone who is overweight has a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25...  someone who is obese has a BMI of 30...

BMI is calculated by taking one's weight and divided that number by the square of one's height...

There is very little difference between a BMI of 25 and a BMI of 30... so, I would say that 72% of Americans over the age of  20 have a weight problem...  and yet, most of our advertising revolves around getting people to eat more and more and more...

It is not illegal yet to sell fat creating food therefore there is no reason to stop advertising for people to eat fat creating food.  Like all other businesses, fat creating food companies continually want to increase their PROFITS...

The other part of of this issue is that it costs more to buy heathly food than it does to buy fat creating food...  so, if you are in a financial crunch, you are going to buy fat creating food.

I had a slim and trim body with a normal BMI until about the age of 60 when I was diagnosed with cancer and took steroids to prevent sickness with my treatments.  After 150 treatments, I had gained 50 pounds and it took me a year to lose 30 pounds by concentrating on not eating much each day.  Exercise does not take weight off...  it simply maintains the weight you have.

So, at 75, I am still 20 pounds overweight which might be considered obese...  I just have not looked at it in that detail.  My activity level has dropped and my eating level should have dropped as well but it hasn't.  Most of my eating is just having something to do, sometimes while I am doing something else and don't really need it.

It bothers me to be overweight but it bothers me even more to see people in their 20s more overweight than I am...  as they get older and older it is going to adversely impact their health.

That will cause healthcare costs to increase as more and more overweight people begin to have health problems.

There will be unintended consequences of overweight Americans in the future as the younger population ages...   like other issues, we will not be worried about that until those problems arrive...  by then, it will be too late for them but maybe help those who have yet to be born.

I have no idea why Americans are on this binge of not caring about being overweight or obese.