Week 4 Health Issues #3 – Obesity

Obesity is a very real epidemic in the United States today.  In fact, it is a public health crisis affecting all of us. You might ask how it could affect you when you are not obese.

Over the past 20 years, the prevalence of childhood and adult obesity have increased in industrialized societies (1,2). Obesity is associated with increased morbidity and mortality (3), is difficult to treat (4), and is associated with costly medical conditions (5). Hence, there is considerable need for effective methods to prevent obesity (6), and because obese children and adolescents tend to become obese adults (7), it is logical that preventive efforts target inappropriate weight gain in children and young adolescents (8) (Williamson et al., 2012). In 2011-2012, the prevalence of obesity in the United States was 16.9% in youth and 34.9% in adults (Ogden CL, Carroll MD, & Flegal KM, 2014).
Obesity has many health, social, psychological, and economic consequences for the individuals being affected and for the society (7). The current US generation may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents if this obesity epidemic cannot be controlled (8). (Wang, Beydoun, Liang, Caballero, & Kumanyika, 2008)

Direct medical costs may include preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related to obesity. Indirect costs relate to morbidity and mortality. Morbidity costs are defined as the value of income lost from decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, and bed days. Mortality costs are the value of future income lost by premature death. Obesity is a growing health concern that carries an array of established cardiovascular and metabolic consequences. It even affects our brain by disrupting the white matter pathways, which can reduce the neural transmission speed, slowing down how well we process information. It also causes executive and working memory dysfunction. This is particularly alarming when you consider how many young people are obese today. By the time they reach old age, a time when our cognitive thinking begins to change, these people will suffer exponentially from memory problems.

By 2030, health-care costs attributable to obesity and overweight could range from $860 to $956 billion, which would account for 15.8–17.6% of total health-care costs, or for 1 in every 6 dollars spent on health care (Wang et al., 2008). Such large sums of money would be better spent in educating our youth, helping the poor and those in their senior years.

Diets high in processed food diet are a common pathway to obesity. In our high stress, rushed and busy lifestyles we are eating more and more fast food and highly processed foods. In addition, while we seem to be very busy, we are in actuality a very sedentary society. Case in point, many schools have removed recess and/or physical education from its curriculum, effectively ensuring that our children grow up to be inactive adults.

It is heartening to know that the public health efforts in the United States have begun to place a large value on decreasing obesity in our nation, especially that of children. The US Department of Agriculture has implemented new regulations in its Women, Infants and Children’s (WIC) program. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has funded both state and community level interventions to also help reduce the prevalence of obesity (Ogden CL et al., 2014).

The challenge is how to change the national conversation surrounding obesity and its associated illnesses from a negative one to a positive one focusing on health and fitness.

The Arts-in-Medicine practitioner can be involved in this education through many avenues. Working with local community centers to create programs of movement such as dance and yoga would be a great method of helping its members stay active. Posters, brochures, using visual arts could all be incorporated into a community organization, the workplace or school program extolling the benefits of healthy eating and staying active. Both writing and visual arts could be used for technological means of educating people about the benefits of staying healthy, for example, PowerPoint presentations and games and educational software, websites, CD-ROMs, e-mail, kiosks and video-conferencing (Guide, n.d.). Plays could even be created surrounding obesity. For example, it could tell the story of a cave man and how he lived in a feast or famine environment. Then jump to modern times where there are no famines but the cave man is still feasting as if one were on the horizon. What would naturally happen is that he would become obese. School children would especially enjoy participating in such and activity and learn from it in the process. Offering classes in the arts, such as painting, singing or dance, would also help relieve stress, which is sometimes a cause of overeating. Even establishing a journal-writing group where participants could write out the feelings that cause them to overeat, or how it hurts to be obese. Any or all of these initiatives would help educate as well as motivate a healthy lifestyle.

Guide, T. C. (n.d.). The Community Guide - Summary(a) - Obesity: Technology-Supported Multicomponent Coaching or Counseling Interventions to Reduce Weight and Maintain Weight Loss. Retrieved February 1, 2015, from http://www.thecommunityguide.org/obesity/TechnologicalCoaching.html

Ogden CL, Carroll MD, & Flegal KM. (2014). Prevalence of obesity in the United States. JAMA, 312(2), 189–190. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.6228

Wang, Y., Beydoun, M. A., Liang, L., Caballero, B., & Kumanyika, S. K. (2008). Will All Americans Become Overweight or Obese? Estimating the Progression and Cost of the US Obesity Epidemic. Obesity, 16(10), 2323–2330. doi:10.1038/oby.2008.351

Williamson, D. A., Champagne, C. M., Harsha, D. W., Han, H., Martin, C. K., Newton, R. L., … Ryan, D. H. (2012). Effect of an Environmental School-Based Obesity Prevention Program on Changes in Body Fat and Body Weight: A Randomized Trial. Obesity, 20(8), 1653–1661. doi:10.1038/oby.2012.60