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Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

nytimes.com

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Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#21

Post by kdw »

callmeed wrote: post #15
hughprime wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the Cheesecake Factory is a bit of an outlying case -- those portions are ridiculous even by American standards. But as an Australian living in the US I agree with you -- I find it hard just to get a normally-sized meal for breakfast or lunch. In Australia, if you order a ham and cheese sandwich, you get ham and cheese. In America if you order a ham and cheese sandwich you get a huge stack of ham, a bit of chee…

"Well, the Cheesecake Factory is a bit of an outlying case ..." I'm not sure about that. Cheesecake Factory, Claim Jumper, you name it. Even the fast casual restaurants like Chipotle. They tout the "freshness" of their ingredients–despite the fact their burritos weight as much as my laptop. Of course, every restaurant now is on the "hamburger slider" craze ... even though the slider is probably the size a normal hamb…

Restaurant meals have grown so large that I only order an entree if I'm planning to take home a doggie-bag.

If I want to actually eat all I order, I usually get two appetizers, or an appetizer and a salad.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#22

Post by pchivers »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

Are American eating habits really that significantly different from Canadian eating habits to explain the fact that the US spends twice as much per capita as Canada spends - notwithstanding the 50 million Americans without coverage?

As a Canadian who visits the United States often, I can definitely say the portion sizes are a lot larger in the United States. Every time I go to the US I go into a state of shock when I see the portion sizes.

You would think that after 20-30 trips to US I would have learned to adjust my expectations by now, but it is still amazing to me to witness how much food Americans eat no matter how many times I see it.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#23

Post by lionhearted »

thesecret wrote: post #13

I work in healthcare and this is my understanding from the responses of patients that I encounter - fast food is cheap. One of the families I work with, both parents are diabetic and the children are all overweight. I asked them about their eating habit and the answer was : McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? Because it's cheap to eat at McDonalds for a family of 4 than it is to buy vegetables at the mar…

I've heard this before, but it isn't true. I make one cup of Quaker oatmeal most mornings - cost is around 11 cents. I buy tea and coffee in bulk - another 11 to 25 cents or so. My entire breakfast costs less than 50 cents, and all it requires is boiling water or 3 minutes in the microwave. It's faster than a drivethrough.

Rice and beans are practically free they're so cheap. I buy turkey or chicken cold cuts, again very cheap. I buy "turkey dogs" (hot dogs, but made of turkey) when they're on sale for something like $2 per six. 3 of them is 210 calories, almost all protein, for about $1. I buy whatever fruit is on sale, fruit isn't so expensive either. I don't like bread, but wheat bread is cheap. My girlfriend sometimes cooks a huge pot of stew that sits on the stove for 3-4 days and serves 10+ meals for under $10.

I'm not sure how much eggs are per dozen - maybe a dollar or two?

It's possible to eat very quickly and inexpensively. The problem isn't cost, it's a mix of education and being willing to forsake convenience/delay gratification. Our culture is decent at the former, but quite bad at the latter.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#24

Post by kdw »

thesecret wrote: post #13

I work in healthcare and this is my understanding from the responses of patients that I encounter - fast food is cheap. One of the families I work with, both parents are diabetic and the children are all overweight. I asked them about their eating habit and the answer was : McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? Because it's cheap to eat at McDonalds for a family of 4 than it is to buy vegetables at the mar…

Part of the problem is likely that some menu items are simply far worse for you than you'd guess, if you don't check the nutrition information.

As an example, I was on the road recently and I stopped by a Burger King drive-thru to get a quick lunch. I knew that a Spicy Chicken Sandwich is 450 calories, which isn't wholly unreasonable.

Sadly, they were out of those, but they asked if I'd like an "angry tendercrisp sandwich' instead. It sounded similar, so I said yes.

The angry tendercrisp sandwich: 1030 calories, 61g of fat, 15g of fat, and 2670mg of sodium.

But I'm sure there are some people who order them, thinking they're healthier than a burger.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#25

Post by coderdude »

lionhearted wrote: post #23
thesecret wrote: post #13

I work in healthcare and this is my understanding from the responses of patients that I encounter - fast food is cheap. One of the families I work with, both parents are diabetic and the children are all overweight. I asked them about their eating habit and the answer was : McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? Because it's cheap to eat at McDonalds for a family of 4 than it is to buy vegetables at the mar…

I've heard this before, but it isn't true. I make one cup of Quaker oatmeal most mornings - cost is around 11 cents. I buy tea and coffee in bulk - another 11 to 25 cents or so. My entire breakfast costs less than 50 cents, and all it requires is boiling water or 3 minutes in the microwave. It's faster than a drivethrough. Rice and beans are practically free they're so cheap. I buy turkey or chicken cold cuts, again…

I agree, I find that going to the grocery store and paying upfront for my meals to come is more cost effective than constantly buying fast food. Fast food is not very cheap at all actually. Unless you're buying from the dollar menu, in which case it's $3... for your kids. It's hard to get full on 99c fries and a mini burger.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#26

Post by startingup »

potatolicious wrote: post #9
ankeshk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing Canada vs USA obesity rates shows that YES indeed eating habits seem to be very different: http://eaves.ca/2008/07/08/fatness-index-canada-vs-united-st...

As a Canadian living in the USA I have to say, we don't eat that differently in Canada, the big difference is we eat less . Canada is just as full of greasy, nutrtionless, processed-to-hell food as America is, but we simply do not consume as much of it, from my observations. When I moved to the USA I immediately (over 4 months) gained a buttload of weight (both figuratively and literally...). This is due to my bad ha…

I agree completely. I am shocked by the amount of food they serve here in the US. I went out with a customer recently to one of those Mexican chain restaurants. Basically I was "done" at the appetizer stage. They proceeded to have the main course, and ordered dessert!

There are many times when my (petite) wife and I go out, and we share ONE meal and sometimes even have some left-over!

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#27

Post by drsnyder »

thesecret wrote: post #13

I work in healthcare and this is my understanding from the responses of patients that I encounter - fast food is cheap. One of the families I work with, both parents are diabetic and the children are all overweight. I asked them about their eating habit and the answer was : McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? Because it's cheap to eat at McDonalds for a family of 4 than it is to buy vegetables at the mar…

My suspicion is that their struggle is more about the perceived cost and time. My wife and I are able to eat most of our meals at $2-3 per person. We have found that to get the cost low, you need to seek out cheaper produce (usually not safeway) and cut way back on meat consumption. Making your own cereal also helps as well as only buying things on sale. You also need a little more time to prepare the raw ingredients.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#29

Post by hughprime »

thesecret wrote: post #13

I work in healthcare and this is my understanding from the responses of patients that I encounter - fast food is cheap. One of the families I work with, both parents are diabetic and the children are all overweight. I asked them about their eating habit and the answer was : McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? Because it's cheap to eat at McDonalds for a family of 4 than it is to buy vegetables at the mar…

This seems to come up every couple of weeks, and is invariably followed with a whole bunch of recipes for rice and beans.

But the thing is that eating at McDonald's for three meals a day is both dumb and expensive. It isn't just expensive compared to rice and beans, it's expensive compared to regular-person food. A meal at McDonald's doesn't cost $3, it generally winds up more like $6... but even if you could find a way to eat at McDonald's for $9 per person per day, that's still a helluva lot of money compared to a sensible diet of breakfast cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and meat + veges + rice/whatever for dinner.

Re: Majority of US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits

#30

Post by tjr »

pchivers wrote: post #22
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #3

Are American eating habits really that significantly different from Canadian eating habits to explain the fact that the US spends twice as much per capita as Canada spends - notwithstanding the 50 million Americans without coverage?

As a Canadian who visits the United States often, I can definitely say the portion sizes are a lot larger in the United States. Every time I go to the US I go into a state of shock when I see the portion sizes. You would think that after 20-30 trips to US I would have learned to adjust my expectations by now, but it is still amazing to me to witness how much food Americans eat no matter how many times I see it.

I once offered to pick up some "Chinese food" for some colleagues visiting the US from China. They didn't recognize anything on the menu, and ended up ordering the "house special", with grilled chicken, vegetables, and rice. Reasonably healthy, from the looks of it.

About an hour after getting our food, I remarked that they had not finished what they ordered.

"This is too much food for us; we can't eat it all!" they explained.

"It's too much for us too," I assured them, "but we eat it all anyway."

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