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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

#41

Post by dasil003 »

hughprime wrote: post #32
dasil003 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, isn't the question what diseases take the longest time to cause death, and thus require the most medical expenditure Not exactly. You're missing two variables. The rate of infection in the population as a whole, and the rate of expenditure to treat the disease.

How so? The argument is that eventually everybody dies of something, so avoiding one fatal disease only shifts your death to another disease at some point in the future. I really think it's quite likely that fat people, on average, cost less in health care over their lives than thin people. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but every person who dies suddenly of a heart attack saves an awful lot of money by no…

Nothing wrong with the basic gist, but read closely the statement I quoted. Just because something takes a long time to kill you doesn't mean its treatment is expensive. Similarly, just because something is expensive to treat doesn't mean enough people have it to make it worth targetting from an overall cost perspective. That's all I was saying.

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

#42

Post by yummyfajitas »

tjr wrote: post #30
pchivers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For the most part, "Chinese food" (served outside china) is an attempt by Chinese resturaunters to cater to the tastes of locals. So a better description of what you had was "American Chinese Food".

If you ever have the opportunity, try Indian Chinese Food. It's fantastic.

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

#43

Post by eru »

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. Though with your stew boiling for 3 days you should begin to factor in energy costs.

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

#44

Post by eru »

dasil003 wrote: post #41
hughprime wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The argument is that eventually everybody dies of something, so avoiding one fatal disease only shifts your death to another disease at some point in the future. I really think it's quite likely that fat people, on average, cost less in health care over their lives than thin people. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but every person who dies suddenly of a heart attack saves an awful lot of money by no…

Nothing wrong with the basic gist, but read closely the statement I quoted. Just because something takes a long time to kill you doesn't mean its treatment is expensive. Similarly, just because something is expensive to treat doesn't mean enough people have it to make it worth targetting from an overall cost perspective. That's all I was saying.

And if you get less deaths per person-years, you might also save money (per person-year).

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

#45

Post by joe_the_user »

anigbrowl wrote: post #34
hughprime wrote: post #4

The headline "Majority US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits" is not the headline of the article, nor is this supposed fact stated anywhere in the article. I very much doubt it's true, and I don't think it's well-defined enough to even be false.

(...) the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet. This is a key argument in the article and the headline seems…

At the minimum, a lack of physical activity has to be included as a factor in this along side diet.

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

#46

Post by anigbrowl »

joe_the_user wrote: post #45
anigbrowl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(...) the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet. This is a key argument in the article and the headline seems…

At the minimum, a lack of physical activity has to be included as a factor in this along side diet.

Haven't you heard? The new wisdom is that exercise makes you even fatter. Well, I exaggerate, but I'm referring to a recent Time story saying 'exercise won't make you thin' (the idea being that you still need to eat less or you'll just get hungrier and never lose weight).

You are quite right, but 'pin the tail on the donkey' seems to sell better :-/

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

#47

Post by nradov »

We are digging our graves with our teeth.

Caring for diabetes and related conditions consumes about 1/7 of all US healthcare spending (could be a little more or less depending on how you count). http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics/cost-of-diabetes... The vast majority of type-2 diabetes cases could be prevented with better eating habits. If the incidence of preventable chronic diseases was greatly reduced, healthcare costs would be so low that we wouldn't be arguing over how to pay for it.

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

#48

Post by jyu »

hughprime wrote: post #4

The headline "Majority US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits" is not the headline of the article, nor is this supposed fact stated anywhere in the article. I very much doubt it's true, and I don't think it's well-defined enough to even be false.

Yea, I couldn't think of a better way to describe this article. Surely I think it's an improvement over "Big Food vs. Big Insurance" which doesn't give you any idea of what the article is really about. Do you have a better suggestion?

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

#49

Post by nostrademons »

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…

Among reasonably thin people in the U.S, it's common knowledge that if you go out to eat, you will bring food home. Most of the time when I go to restaurants with family or friends, we at least end up with lunch for the next day, and sometimes another full dinner. Occasionally, if it's a really good restaurant and my dad orders way too many dishes, we end up with leftovers for the next week.

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

#50

Post by ars »

anigbrowl wrote: post #34
hughprime wrote: post #4

The headline "Majority US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits" is not the headline of the article, nor is this supposed fact stated anywhere in the article. I very much doubt it's true, and I don't think it's well-defined enough to even be false.

(...) the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet. This is a key argument in the article and the headline seems…

> ... the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries ....

Is actually explained by the fact that we pay our doctors twice as much as they do.

We have the same number of doctors per person as they do. And unless our doctors are way more efficient, that means we get sick at about the same rate.

But we spend twice as much, because we pay twice as much. Not because we get sick twice as much.

And see this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=816589 which was just posted.

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