The coronavirus is dominating the headlines. This is understandable, given that it is a new and potentially fatal virus that we don’t well understand, and for which there is not yet a vaccine.
Still, as Anthony S. Fauci, M.D, acknowledges, the risks of serious ailments from the coronavirus are “overwhelmingly weighted toward people with underlying [medical] conditions and the elderly.” Fauci is Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Relative Risk. So, if you’re not a senior citizen and you don’t have an underlying medical condition, then it is exceedingly unlikely that you will die or suffer a serious problem if you contract the coronavirus.
Yet, a far more dangerous and deadly public health problem, which affects many more Americans, young and old, gets relatively little media and political attention. I refer, of course, to obesity.
“Some 42.4 percent of U.S. adults,” reports the Washington Post’s Linda Searing,
now qualify as obese, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], with no real difference in prevalence between men and women…
Both obesity and severe obesity are most common among middle-aged adults (those ages 40 to 59), according to the CDC.
Data show that since the start of the 21st century, obesity has become increasingly common, rising from about 30 percent to more than 40 percent of adults, while the prevalence of severe obesity has increased from about 5 percent to just over 9 percent in that time…
Obesity also has been linked to an increased risk for numerous diseases and medical issues, including diabetes, heart disease and some cancers, as well as depression, asthma, obstructive sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and back pain.
Health experts say that losing just 5 to 10 percent of body weight can help obese people rein in their health risks.
Adds the New York Times’ Jane E. Brody:
A prestigious team of medical scientists has projected that by 2030, nearly one in two adults will be obese, and nearly one in four will be severely obese…
In as many as 29 states, the prevalence of obesity will exceed 50 percent, with no state having less than 35 percent of residents who are obese, they predicted…
Given the role obesity plays in fostering many chronic, disabling and often fatal diseases, these are dire predictions indeed. Yet… the powers that be in this country are doing very little to head off the potentially disastrous results of expanding obesity, obesity specialists say…
Americans weren’t always this fat; since 1990, the prevalence of obesity in this country has doubled.
People who choose to blame genetics are fooling no one but themselves… Our genetics haven’t changed in the last 30 years. Rather, what has changed is the environment in which our genes now function.
As we’ve observed here at ResCon1, the obesity epidemic is a national disgrace, and it is largely preventable.
Simply put, we Americans eat too much bad food too often, with little or no regard for necessary limits on our daily caloric intake and the need for proper proportions of macro nutrients—i.e., fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
The problem starts early in life, during childhood and adolescence, as some 18.5 percent of the youth population in America is obese, according to the CDC.
Public Policy. The politicians and the media could do more to focus attention on this problem and educate the public. There also are concrete public policy actions that could be taken.
For example, federal nutritional guidelines that recommend we consume an inordinate and unhealthy amounts of carbohydrates should be revised, and the demonization of fat needs to be reconsidered in light of the best and most recent scientific research.
This may be less alluring than obsessing over a new virus that has induced a public panic (or at least a media panic), but it would be far more effective and desirable from a public health perspective.
Feature photo credit: CDC via Stat News (map of obesity rates by state).