Fat Facts

I have the perfect health care plan for the United States. It's called "Pay For Fat". Every time someone loses a pound and keeps it off, we pay them $100. That would be a deal! And it would save millions in health care costs and be the best National Health Care Plan we could have.

Because we are one fat nation.

How fat? Very fat. Consider these facts:

About two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. That means 134 million Americans. And men are fatter than women. There are 65 million fat women and 68 fat men. Wow - that is a lot of fat people!

About one third of Americans are REALLY fat! The government is nice and calls them obese. About 64 million Americans are obese. But women win this one. There are 35 million obese women and only 29 million obese men.

And the news gets more depressing. When you look at Americans 20 years or older, less than one-thrid of them are at the right weight. About 65 million Americans are at the right weight. And here is where women make men look bad. There are 38 million women who are at the right weight. Only 27 million men are at the right weight.

In 1960 only about 44 percent of Americans were overweight. Not that that is something to brag about. But we have been super-sizing ourselves and today over 66 percent of Americans are overweight.

And it starts early. 17 percent of kids are overweight and 17 percent of teenagers are overweight.

What is the coast of all this fat? Fat people cost our economy about $117 billion dollars a year. Hmm that would pay for a few national health care plans.

Fat also equals lost productivity. About $40 million was lost in workdays, fat people spent about $63 million on doctor visits and had about $70 million worth of "bed days".

We could be fat because we don't do a damn thing. Only 26 percent of Americans participate in vigorous leisure time activities three or more times a week ( getting off and on the bar stool does not count) . What is really sad, "vigorous activity" is classified as "periods of vigorous physical activity lasting 10 minutes or more" Wow!

About 60 percent of Americans do not exercise at all. Except my ex mother-in-laws. They were very good at jumping to conclusions.

The direct cost of all this sitting round may be as high as $24.3 billion.

Oh by the way, here is what can happen when you are overweight:

Overweight and obesity are known risk factors for:

• diabetes
• coronary heart disease
• high blood cholesterol
• stroke
• hypertension
• gallbladder disease
• osteoarthritis (degeneration of cartilage and bone of joints)
• sleep apnea and other breathing problems
• some forms of cancer (breast, colorectal, endometrial, and kidney)

Obesity is also associated with:

• complications of pregnancy
• menstrual irregularities
• hirsutism (presence of excess body and facial hair)
• stress incontinence (urine leakage caused by weak pelvic floor muscles)
• psychological disorders, such as depression
• increased surgical risk
• increased mortality

http://www.win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/index.htm#preval