"Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is diet book. Although I don't think that most people need to run out and try a new fad died, I wanted to share with you where I got exposure to this book. I'm taking a financing class at the University of Arizona and this is on the required book list. One of the important topics in my finance class is the cost of being overweight. There are far more costs then just the emotional toll it can take on a person. We have studied how it becomes a financial burden and is almost a gateway to other illnesses and disease. The book goes into how to eat for certain diseases and how to get a proper nutrient balance. It is one of the better diet books out there, but my point is not about the dieting but the money. If you can save money by eating groceries instead of fast food, you also save money by keeping your body healthy. Think of all the medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, and so on. If you don't get these illness associated with obesity then you save that money as well. So when people are out there saying the only reason they and their family don't eat well is the money, then someone should have them look at the long term and the actual savings involved with home cooked meals.
Another complain out of people is the time it takes to prepare meals. That seems to be just an excuse when we have such modern technology used for cooking. Is 30 minutes to back a chicken really too long? Its not like you can't do anything else in that 30 minutes. There are so many shows and books on how to cook healthy in less than 30 minutes. Another good option is tossing your meat into a crock pot. You can cook food for about 8 hrs while your not home and come home to a pot roast completely cooked . It takes a whole 5 minutes to put it in add some broth and chop some carrots to prepare. Really these excuses are not good enough to make up for the fact that you are hurting your body as well as your children's bodies.
A good article on this issue is:
Bussiness: Fast Food, Good and Hungry. ( January 01, 2010). The Economist, 395. 8687,65.
I think your point regarding the financial concerns of obesity is incredibly valid. Approximately 1 in 6 health care dollars are spent on obesity and related conditions. The extreme extend of America's obesity problem continues to cause more financial difficulties. It was estimated that U.S hospitals will spend over $1.2 billion by the end of 2011 to accommodate bariatric patients (i.e. bariatirc wheelchair is 7x the cost of a regular wheelchair). The U.S. now spends $147billion/yr on obesity and related conditions ($1,400/yr for an obese individual). If our obesity epidemic continues, our healthcare system most likely will not be able to accommodate.
ReplyDeleteLudwig et al. JAMA 2010
To elaborate further on what you had said about groceries being more affordable than fast food I found this statistics provided by The US Department of Health and Human Services:
ReplyDeleteIn 2007;
-Grocery Stores Per 1000 Residents: 0.17 (47th)
-Amount Spent on Fast Food Per Capita: $761 (fourth most)
-Gallons of Soft Drinks Purchased Per Capita: 60 (21st least)
-Pounds of Sweet Snacks Purchased Per Capita: 109 (11th least)
With grocery stores only being available to .17 of every 1000 people, Arizonans have to supplement their diet with fast food. This demonstrates a significant restriction on how much healthy food is accessible in a rapidly growing state. With more growth/ less accessibility to grocery stores, it can only be assumed that this number will increase as less and less people choose to eat from grocery stores and instead at fast food right around their corner. That is why Arizonans spent an average of $760.50 each on fast food in 2007, the fourth greatest amount among the states.
Source: I will look for the most updated statistics and provide the links for them as I find it.