By the end of this month, I should be reaching 2500 recorded
running kilometers. Currently, I’m half way through week seven of marathon
training; I'm just about half way through the whole training programme itself.
I’m starting to verge into the realm of doing some extended hardcore runs, and
compounded with the extra cycling, and strength training I’ve been doing, it
demands a whole other pattern of habits and adjustments for consuming and
expending energy. I was through all this last year; it means having to eat
often throughout the day; it involves forcing myself to eat the right food at
the right times, even when I don’t really feel like it, or when it’s far from
convenient for me to do so. On some days, like the 22 plus kilometer run due
this coming Sunday, it means something like an extra 2700 calorie intake (mostly
as slow-burning carbs, which I really don’t prefer eating) just to last through
such a training session. That means more than doubling my normal meal load. It
makes me sick just to think about trying to haul around all that extra food in
the gut (plus the extra water I’ll need to hydrate) while trying to run that distance. There
are some people who can pack this in with no problem. At one time in my life I
could have, but not anymore. Other people in their forties who can consume that on a regular
basis, who don't run, would probably accumulate a weight of over 300 lbs. It led me to think about the impact of being that obese, not just for a
person’s personal health, but for society, as more and more such people are
becoming a more common sight.
I found an article from Men’s
Health News saying that the cost to the American public for the impact
created by the prevalence of obesity in that nation is $190 billion dollars, or
around $608 per person. I became curious, and started crunching some numbers to
try and estimate how much that would translate to as the equivalent sorts of
costs to the Canadian public.
According to the global statistics site, NationMaster, the
USA has the distinction of being the fattest nation in the world, ranking
number one, with 30.6% of its population falling into the category of obese.
Canada, by comparison, ranks as the 11th most obese nation on the
planet, with 14.3% of Canadians having enough excess poundage to be classified
as such. I think personally that this figure is wrong, and I believe that there
are a lot more chubby Canadians around than the numbers say. Indubitably, that
number is surely rising. Maybe this statistic was compiled during the
summer/early fall months when we as the Canadian public generally swing toward
more outside activity and are at the peak of our annual fitness level, and have
more weight loss going on instead of weight gain. I think the major reason why
many Canadians become overweight is because we are subjected to colder winter months
during which there is a higher likelihood of more stagnation and inactivity
(that’s my excuse anyway). That generalized theory doesn’t hold water though,
since I was very surprised to see that warmer sunnier nations have higher
obesity rates than we do, like Mexico (ranked 2nd), Australia (6th)
and New Zealand (7th), while modern industrialized northern societies,
with long cold winter seasons similar to Canada, have lower rates of obesity
than our nation, such as Finland (ranked 15th), Iceland (17th),
Sweden (21st), and Norway (26th).
Anyway, for now I’m using the US data to interpolate
Canada’s cost to deal with the public impact of obesity, since we share a lot
of common food and lifestyle choices. By interpolating from each nation’s
population numbers and respective percentages of obese people, I calculated
that the number of Americans who are obese outnumber obese Canadians by twenty times. I figured out that
proportionately, it then would cost the Canadian public, 1.057 billion dollars
to manage the impact of obesity population: roughly costing each Canadian $31
on a per capita basis to nationally deal with the impact of our overweight
citizens (in theory)*.
Rather than us forking over $31 each to the taxman to
finance a public battle against obesity, which of course would be inflated to
whatever obscene figure to account for a wasteful cost for administration and
bureaucracy, why don’t we all try to do our own experiments in home economics
to gain victory over our own personal battles of the bulge, that will
ultimately allow us to keep and save a hell of a lot more than $31 per year**. My
own money saving strategies, which automatically translate into a means of weight
control are:
·
I cycle or walk as often as I can during the
spring, summer, and early fall to work. Even though it’s a relatively short
distance, my fuel savings are tremendous.
·
I’m blessed with urban living in that I walk or
cycle for grocery shopping during the same aforementioned seasons of the year.
When I do this, I’m automatically set with a limit as to how much I can
physically carry home. It forces me to be mindful about what I really need; if
I really do need more, it translates as more exercise in making return trips to
the stores or markets, or learning to do without for the time being, and
avoiding stuffing myself with that extra food.
·
In trying to avoid excess useless bulk to haul
home by bike or on foot, it pretty much eliminates canned/bottled drinks (pop
and juice) as a shopping choice; which are major culprits in excessive empty calorie
intake. I drink more water, coffee, or tea at home. Milk jugs/cartons are the only
drink containers I get at the grocery store. Wine and beer are pretty much the
only other bottled drinks I consume (and I make and store those at home, or I walk to a local licensed restaurant or
lounge/parlour to have them). The higher liquor prices in these places ensure that
I drink in moderation.
·
The produce, dairy, and meat sections of the
store are pretty much where I spend most of my time when grocery shopping. Thus, I’m more likely to
walk out of there then with food that’s less tainted with preservatives, excess
sugar, and salt. The only frozen food I buy is meat/seafood, veggies, and fruit
for protein smoothies. If it has been pre-battered/pre-fried it stays in the
freezer (trans-fats).
·
I turn off cable TV service during the summer;
without planting my ass in front of a TV set I automatically find ways to be
more active.
·
Despite having a limited balcony space, I still set
up a container garden. When I put effort and energy into trying to grow and
harvest my own food, I feel more obligated to use it right.
·
I purchase good food boxes from the CHEP program. It has a double benefit: I get a
variety of nutritious fruit, and my money goes to support a programme to help
feed children, and educate them about, nutritious food.
These methods at least give me more months of losing weight
than I have gaining it back over winter. Sure, I knowingly sacrifice some
convenience, but I believe over-convenience is a big part of the problem with a
population gaining excessive weight. I tend to live like an average European
over the snow-free months. If more people around did the strategies I just mentioned,
I would think that our nation’s obesity rate would drop to be on par with some
of the European nations that rate between positions twenty and thirty in the
obesity rate rankings.
I know I risk sounding a bit bigoted by posting this: making
myself seem anti-fat. More accurately, I’m pro-fit and a strong believer that
an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure: preferring to directly
embrace the positive rather than trying to fool myself and others into
believing that a condition that is sapping away one’s quality of life is somehow
normal or positive. We can’t make systems better by purposely spending billions
of dollars adjusting for that which is objectionable, and yet for the most part
correctable on the individual’s level. When
we accommodate too much it’s like we are supporting a person’s right to be
obese or addicted to anything in general, and basically enabling them for a course of poorer health. Let’s get
real and face it, most obese people really don’t want to be that fat, and less
concerned about gaining a right to be fat. Survey any group of people who have
experienced both physical conditions in their life: once where they were very
fit and healthy, and then some other point in their lifetimes when they were
very overweight***, and then ask them to compare the two lifestyles. I’m sure
99.9% of those surveyed would say that they were more pleased and comfortable
with their general physical and mental well-being when they were on the fit end
of the spectrum. They weren’t putting a strain on themselves, and they weren’t
draining the public health system when they were fit and healthy. Sadly though,
we are seeing more and more cases of people who have never known what it is
like to actually be fit at any time throughout their lives. They started out
being fat from childhood right through to adulthood, and thus have been
completely estranged from any idea of what a healthier, more positive lifestyle
is actually like. Obese people are uncomfortable to say the least; thence comes
a whole plague of marketing gimmicks to exploit their suffering. Sadly, now it
seems like there is a whole marketing system happening globally that
necessarily needs obese people to exist.
There was a saying I heard a while ago that makes perfect
sense to me: if you aren’t going to use time, energy, and money to try to stay
healthy, you’ll have to learn how to deal with wasting time, energy, and money
being sick. I would venture to guess that 80-90 percent of medical aid given and
hospital care is due to ignorance and stupidity, either by accidents afflicted
by someone onto the patient, or because of the patient’s own wrong-doing or
poor lifestyle choices (I’d say mostly due to the latter). Sloth and gluttony are
getting to be too common as the reasons why people are setting themselves up
for future long-term medical care, or worse. Obesity is a preventable thing with
a bit of personal effort and discipline, and nothing you or I should be
shelling out extra tax dollars for to fix.
*- I think is
a gross underestimation of what the actual cost would be here in Canada. The
article listed and stressed more about the costs of converting public utilities
over to accommodate obese bodies in the US. However, given that we have a
universal healthcare system that the USA doesn’t have, we as Canadians would
have to factor in the costs of things in our tax bill like obesity linked
medical interventions like pharmaceutical aids to treat Type 2 Diabetes and
atherosclerosis (insulin, lipostatin drugs, blood pressure regulators, etc.)
and consequential surgeries and therapies (cardiac procedures, stroke recovery,
joint repair, hip replacements, etc.), and resulting hospital stays/staff wages
etc. . . you get the picture: the cost is a lot more exorbitant than 31 dollars
a year per person. The sector of our population that doesn’t pay taxes; yet has
the highest rates of lifestyle related illnesses/health risks complicates the
matter further (you know who you are).
** The
article didn’t state the time period over which that $608 was spent, so let us
assume it’s annually given that it relates to public spending budgets/taxes. I didn't distinguish the monetary values as American or Canadian dollars since today the two currencies are very close to being at parity. It's enough to realize that the figures are approaching something very astronomical.
***-Myself
included, I’ve been there too; not 300 lbs big, but significantly overweight. I
don’t wish this curse on anyone. Being civil toward and accepting of people who
are overweight is just a matter of respect and human dignity, and accept that they
may have the potential to change with the right motivators. However, the promoting
of the social movement of “fat acceptance”: actively tolerating the lowering standard
of health that is ultimately destructive to the well-being for others is
stupid. We might as well promote “tobacco acceptance”, “alcohol-abuse
acceptance” or “crystal meth acceptance” if we were to use that line of
thinking. Love the sinner: hate the sin.
