Obesity. Chronic Diseases. Violence
Land of the sick
In the US obesity still rises. The states shown in red average 30-34.9 per cent of obese people. The states shown in purple have a rate of 35 per cent or more
Our news team reports. The US has been the most obese country in the world for many years, and rates of obesity continue to rise. Significantly, the map above indicates that the US states with the highest rates of obesity are those of the 'Deep South' where average incomes are lowest and people are most likely to feel forced to subsist on cheapened energy-dense fatty or sugary products. (Some figures now show that rates of obesity in Mexico, which have rocketed since the North American Free Trade Agreement was put in place, are now even higher than in the US).
US: short lives, poor health
A new quasi-official report shows that obesity, itself an uncontrolled public health crisis in the US – and in many other countries – is a symptom of a much bigger malaise. The report Shorter Lives, Poorer Health.(the report summary is available here) is published by the US National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, officially set up to advise the US government. It is a testament to the relative openness of the Obama administration. It finds that on average, people in the USA are less healthy and more likely to die early from disease or accidents than those in any other high-income country. Even those people who have health insurance, a college education, a high income and relatively healthy ways of life, are sicker than people in comparable countries. This includes non-Hispanic white people with money and insurance who are not smokers and are not obese.
'We were struck by the gravity of these findings' says panel chair Steven Woolf' 'Americans are dying and suffering at rates that we know are unnecessary because people in other high-income countries are living longer lives and enjoying better health. What really concerns our panel is why, for decades, we have been slipping behind'. Compared with 16 other high-income countries, between the late 1990s and 2008, the report says that: 'we uncovered a strikingly consistent and pervasive pattern of higher mortality and inferior health in the United States, beginning at birth'.
Rates of spending on health care in the US are higher than in any other country. One reason is the higher rates of disease that require treatment with drugs or surgery, the costs of which are rocketing. The US has the highest infant mortality rate of all the high-income countries assessed. Deaths from injuries and homicides are far higher than elsewhere and a leading cause of death in children, adolescents and young adults. Since the 1990s US adolescents have the highest rate of pregnancies and are more likely to acquire sexually transmitted infections. The US has the second highest HIV rate and the highest incidence of Aids among the 17 countries. People in the US lose more years of life to alcohol and other drugs. As well as having the highest rates of obesity, the US has from age 20, one of the highest levels of type 2 diabetes. The death rate from heart disease is the second highest. There is more morbidity and mortality from lung disease, and older people report more arthritis and other disability, than in Europe.
The report noted that people in the US who are still alive after the average age of death are more likely to live longer, have lower death rates from stroke and cancer, better-controlled blood pressure and cholesterol levels and lower rates of smoking than elsewhere. But death and disease take a huge toll on the younger American population. Steven Woolf states: 'I don't think most parents know, on average, that infants, children, and adolescents in the US die younger and have greater rates of illness and injury than youth in other countries'.
Obesity. Chronic diseases
The UK is also a sick society
The UK medical profession is now at last united on the crisis of obesity and all this implies. In February the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published Measuring Up: The medical profession's prescription for the nation's obesity crisis. (the report is available here). The follows a report from the UK Royal College of Physicians, Action on Obesity: Comprehensive care for All (report available here) which recommends more medical bariatric services such as drugs and surgery.
The force of the Academy report is that it is the united view of the main relevant UK medical professional bodies. It derives from evidence showing that on average people in the UK are more likely to be obese than in any other European country (though not – see above – the US). Currently there are over a million people in the UK who are morbidly obese with a body mass index of 40 or more. The report says that more evidence is needed. But it does have ten recommendations. These not surprisingly include more training, facilities and resources for the medical profession. They also include a number of recommendations that have been made in the UK since the 1980s.
Nutrition standards
Food-based standards to be introduced in all UK hospitals. Existing school standards to apply to all schools. Schools to teach food skills.
Food product availability
Fast food outlets to be restricted near schools, colleges, and leisure centres. Advertising of foods high in saturated fats, sugar or salt before 9pm to be banned.
Sugary drinks
Sugary soft drinks to have a 20 per cent tax imposed for an experimental period and the revenue used to fund weight management programmes.
Food labelling:
Manufactures and retailers to accept a unified system of 'traffic light' food labelling, and calorie indicators to be used in restaurants and fast food outlets.
The global crisis
These analyses are conclusions are misleading inasmuch as they may suggest that obesity, with what it signifies, is a crisis confined to high-income countries. In the book Sick Societies (1) a series of authors emphasise that the crisis is global. The book's editors state: 'The choices to eat poorly, drink dangerously, smoke to cope with stress, and the lack of time or money for exercise, are all strongly shaped by the world around us. As a few examples, in India cell phones are more abundant than toilets; ice-cold Coca-Cola is more widespread than insulin to treat diabetes; and Western supermarkets and food companies are taking over traditional farmers' jobs and markets, forcing workers to migrate to the cities or other countries in search of work, often ending up in slums'.
Reference
- Stuckler D, Siegel K. Sick Societies. Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease. Oxford: University Press: 2011.
