It's the Medias fault no it's the government's fault no blame Canada no blame .......

[JR]

is this really JUST a parenting issue? my opinion is that it isn't. i think the parent is somewhat responsible. not sure to what degree. i think that there should be something done to curb how food is marketed that targets children. not sure how. i believe very deeply that schools should have their asses kicked for the shit they feed kids and that the federal government should re-evaluate their own programs where they subsidize schools which feed kids absolute shit.

1) a child is being programmed to be a turd until he dies. thats not his choice, but its going to affect him until he dies and most likely be the cause of his death.
2) its something that has a direct impact on us all economically.



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http://www.obesity.org/treatment/cost.shtml
Costs of Obesity


Several researchers have examined the costs of obesity. The World Bank has estimated the cost of obesity in the U.S. at 12 percent of the national health care budget, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

The American Obesity Association commissioned a cost study in 1999 by the Lewin Group, a respected health economics consulting firm. The Lewin Group examined the costs of fifteen (15) conditions causally related to obesity. They included: arthritis, breast cancer, heart disease, colorectal cancer, type 2 diabetes, endometrial cancer, end-stage renal disease, gallbladder disease, hypertension, liver disease, low back pain, renal cell cancer, obstructive sleep apnea, stroke and urinary incontinence. Utilizing the National Health Interview Survey in 1995 and the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) databases, they established prevalence rates of each comorbid condition.

For each condition, the percentage of the cost of each disease was determined through the scientific literature or professional associations and were computed according to the percent of the costs attributed to obesity. This method established the direct health care costs of obesity at $102.2 billion in 1999. See Table 1. This study did not examine indirect costs. It should be noted that the study relied on published data on the costs of the specific comorbid diseases. There is probably some amount of double-counting in the figure which could not be adjusted.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
Current estimates of the economic cost of obesity in the United States.

Wolf AM, Colditz GA.

The Women's Place, University of Virginia Health Systems, Charlottesville, USA.

This study was undertaken to update and revise the estimate of the economic impact of obesity in the United States. A prevalence-based approach to the cost of illness was used to estimate the economic costs in 1995 dollars attributable to obesity for type 2 diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension, gallbladder disease, breast, endometrial and colon cancer, and osteoarthritis. Additionally and independently, excess physician visits, work-lost days, restricted activity, and bed-days attributable to obesity were analyzed cross-sectionally using the 1988 and 1994 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Direct (personal health care, hospital care, physician services, allied health services, and medications) and indirect costs (lost output as a result of a reduction or cessation of productivity due to morbidity or mortality) are from published reports and inflated to 1995 dollars using the medical component of the consumer price index (CPI) for direct cost and the all-items CPI for indirect cost. Population-attributable risk percents (PAR%) are estimated from large prospective studies. Excess work-lost days, restricted activity, bed-days, and physician visits are estimated from 88,262 U.S. citizens who participated in the 1988 NHIS and 80,261 who participated in the 1994 NHIS. Sample weights have been incorporated into the NHIS analyses, making these data generalizable to the U.S. population. The total cost attributable to obesity amounted to $99.2 billion dollars in 1995. Approximately $51.64 billion of those dollars were direct medical costs. Using the 1994 NHIS data, cost of lost productivity attributed to obesity (BMI> or =30) was $3.9 billion and reflected 39.2 million days of lost work. In addition, 239 million restricted-activity days, 89.5 million bed-days, and 62.6 million physician visits were attributable to obesity in 1994. Compared with 1988 NHIS data, in 1994 the number of restricted-activity days (36%), bed-days (28%), and work-lost days (50%) increased substantially. The number of physician visits attributed to obesity increased 88% from 1988 to 1994. The economic and personal health costs of overweight and obesity are enormous and compromise the health of the United States. The direct costs associated with obesity represent 5.7% of our National Health Expenditure in the United States.