Costs of obesity too high to ignore
If improving your physical and mental well being isn’t enough to motivate you to get healthy, consider a financial motivation.
Recently, Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, reported that the United States spends nearly $150 billion a year fighting obesity. That’s more than this nation spends on fighting cancer, and double what it spent to fight obesity 10 years ago.
In fact, $650 million of economic stimulus money is earmarked on programs to fight obesity and smoking.
Obesity The Dangers You Should Be Aware Of
While almost everyone knows that being obese is not healthy, many people who are obese are not fully aware of how dangerous the consequences really are, and they are more dangerous than they think. It is worth taking some time to learn about this issue, because it will likely affect either yourself or at least one of your friends or family members.
While obesity itself does not technically kill people, somewhere between 100,000 to 400,000 Americans die from the diseases that come with it each year. Even at the lower estimates, it is still a huge death toll; much greater than other causes of death which get a lot more press attention.
So, how do you know if you are obese? A formula called the body mass index (or simply BMI) is used to work out who is obese. While those with BMIs of 25 to 29 are classified as being overweight, those at 30 to 40 are regarded as being obese. Regardless of exactly where you come on this scale, it is important to know the dangers of carrying around too much weight.
