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twodot posted:Is there evidence that obesity is a net health care cost? People dying at 50 from a heart attack seems cheaper than at 80 from various cancers. I'm not suggesting obesity as a cost saving mechanism, just that promoting health as cost saving incentive is sometimes counterintuitive. The person who died at 80 from cancer has probably paid into the system for 60 years, and probably only incurred significant medical expenses quite late in life. Heart attack at 50 guy on the other hand never made it to retirement age, possibly spent at least some of his working-age life unable to work or working at reduced productivity, and started racking up expensive chronic health problems at a much earlier age.
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Dec 3, 2015 20:56
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A problem with the 500lb individuals is that they create an unrealistic interpretation of what fat or an acceptable weight is. It is too easy for someone who is 'only' 50-100lbs overweight to go 'hey, look at that guy, I'm half his size, so I'm really not that overweight', even though they are firmly in the unhealthy obese category. This can be a strong disincentive to get back into shape. The risk with fat acceptance is that it also pushes what is considered to be a socially acceptable weight into the danger zone. It's really the same as the lazy route of just buying a larger pair of trousers and going "hey, my clothes fit. Everything's fine'.
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Jan 24, 2016 10:44
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