Greetings from LIFESTYLE CHOICES!
The Buck Stops HERE!!!
(In lieu of my regular newsletter in which I provide the latest research and information regarding good health, I decided to address Healthcare Reform this month.)
The United States is ranked 48th in the world for life expectancy coming in behind countries like Japan, Australia, France, Canada, the U.K., etc. For the first time in history children being born in the U.S. will not have the same life expectancy as our generation! It will be shorter. Notice several of these countries practice socialized medicine. Japan is ranked 3rd in the world for longevity. While we espouse our country having the greatest healthcare providers, we are ranked so far behind how the Japanese are faring in real time health! How can that be? How can we have the latest in diagnostic equipment and excellent practitioners but still rank so poorly as a developed nation?
What is Japan doing differently?
Japan is not just talking about having better healthcare. They’ve done something: their government has implemented one of the most ambitious campaigns ever to slim down its citizens. In 2008, Japan instituted a national law in which companies and local governments must measure the waistlines of people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. Men must have no greater than 33.5” and women no greater than 35.4” waists. Japan’s target is to shrink the overweight population 10% by 2012 and 25% by 2015. Now remember this is Japan where being overweight is not nearly the problem we have here in America. Research in Japan indicates the average male waistline falls just below the new government limit.
What happens if people don’t reach these goals? Initially people try to lose weight on their own and if they are not successful after 3 months, they are educated about weight loss. If they still haven’t met their specified weight reduction after 6 months, they are re-educated. What then?
The government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet these specific goals.
So what is the average American’s waist size?
The average male’s waistline is 39” and women’s 37.” Now the National Institute of Health (NIH) recommends males have no greater than a 37” waist and females 31.5.” If they do have greater waistlines the NIH recommends these folks “modify their lifestyles to reduce their waists and resulting health risks.” Oh really?
For the life of me I never knew the NIH had made these recommendations. Since I’m in healthcare one would think I knew what the NIH was recommending but I can assure you I was never aware of this. Maybe I overlooked this in my monthly nursing update? I think not.
Do you know about this recommendation? Probably not but of course how would this communication have been dispersed? Would you even care to know about this? Would this make you decide you needed to lose weight? Would you like President Obama and our Congress to make this a law? Can you even imagine if they dared do so?
Here is what Michael Milken from the Milken Institute says about making Americans healthier:
(The following article can be read in its entirety from the Milken Institute which was published in the San Diego Union-Tribune: (http://www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/publications.taf?function=detail&ID=38801154&cat=Arts)]
Choosing to Make America Healthier
June 13, 2008
Michael Milken
“San Diego’s thousands of biotechnology researchers work in a field of mind-boggling complexity that requires years of rigorous training. They can tell you how hard it is to make even small advances against major diseases.
So assuming you don’t have an advanced scientific degree, you might think there’s nothing you can do to achieve the kind of medical breakthroughs that would eliminate half the diabetes cases, prevent one of every five cancer deaths, and save trillions of dollars. Anyone who developed a pill that could do that would win a Nobel Prize.
You have that pill. It’s called lifestyle choice. And it’s free.
The fact that lifestyle affects health isn’t news. But in a recent report, the Milken Institute showed lifestyle’s economic impact – how our choices contribute to chronic diseases that increase treatment and insurance costs, reduce productivity, erode our international competitiveness and, worst of all, magnify personal suffering.
The report, “An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease,” quantifies the staggering costs of “failing to contain the containable.”
Behavioral choices – especially those that underlie obesity – often affect the prevalence, severity and costs of these diseases. While genetic factors are very important, as much as 70 percent of direct health care spending is to treat lifestyle-related conditions. In calculating cost savings, our report assumed only a modest reduction in the percentage of overweight and obese Americans from the current two-thirds to about half.
No one claims it’s easy to change diet and exercise habits. In my case, it took a doctor saying, “You have cancer.” Yet we’ve made progress against smoking – another entrenched habit – and I believe we can do the same with obesity.” — Michael Milken
Chronic diseases are what escalate our healthcare costs the most. “If everyone in America lost weight and returned to the same weight levels of 1991, we would save one trillion dollars. We would cover all the uninsured, and we would be able to quadruple the money for medical research.” —Mike Milken, Chairman, CNBC’S July 27, 2009
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According to the Milken Institute State Chronic Disease Index: Utah is the healthiest state, New Mexico ranks 4th, Texas ranks 12, my husband’s home state Arkansas ranks 48, and West Virginia is in last place. The rankings are listed in the following:
http://www.chronicdiseaseimpact.com/ebcd.taf?cat=index
The Milken Institute explains that differences in lifestyle (smoking, alcohol abuse, diet, and exercise), along with demographics (age distribution, ethnicity) and urbanization partly explain differences in disease rates among the states.
I am NOT saying our government should have the same strategy as Japan and implement a law. I too would like to see the government not involved with our healthcare. I truly do not know the answer to this huge dilemma we’ve gotten ourselves into.
But what is it going to take for us to stop justifying and rationalizing our poor choices? Who else can we blame?
I believe if we keep going the way we’re going we will keep getting larger and larger and eventually employers will no longer carry health benefits just because they can no longer afford to help people who refuse to help themselves. And should they?
I think it’s time for us as individuals to be held accountable. The buck stops here.
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For private health or life coaching sessions, call me at 713.443.9400. I’m conveniently located at Medical Center Blvd and El Camino in the Clear Lake, Texas area or you may work with me via telephone.
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For purchases of emWave or HeartMath® products or a series of HeartMath sessions, please contact me via phone 713.443.9400 or lifestyle_choices@yahoo.com. HeartMath is a program for stress reduction.
The following books have just arrived:
- Transforming Anger
- Transforming Depression
- The HeartMath Approach to Managing Hypertension
- Overcoming Emotional Chaos
- Stopping Emotional Eating: The emWave Stress and Weight management Program (Newest HeartMath program)