SPOTLIGHT THE COST OF OBESITY "Obesity now accounts for one-third of the
increase in our nation's health care costs."
-- Kenneth Thorpe, Emory University
Slim society's tolerance is
wearing thin.
As more people have tipped the scales toward obesity , normalweight folks
have signed up for employee wellness programs that offer them lower premiums and
other financial perks as a reward for their healthy weight -- and that
indirectly penalize heavier workers. They've crafted policies, most
unsuccessful, to compel individuals to lose weight. They've become vocal in
their support for taxes on junk food and soda.
Among recent anti-fat actions that have sparked controversy: An ultimately
unsuccessful plan at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania sought to take the body
mass index of every enrolling student and require the obese to lose weight or
take a fitness class before they could graduate.
In Mississippi, legislators tried to pass a bill to let restaurants prohibit
obese people from dining.
Last August, Toby Cosgrove, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, one of
the nation's largest medical centers, provoked national outrage when he said
that, if it were up to him, he would stop hiring the obese.
He later
apologized.
Most efforts have ultimately met a quick demise or retraction, but not before
leaving an impact.
Media reports fan the fury . A report by Emory University researchers
projected last November that by 2018 the U.S. could expect to spend $344 billion
on health care costs attributable to obesity.
"Between 1990 and today , obesity rates have doubled, and obesity now
accounts for one-third of the increase in our nation's health care costs," said
Kenneth Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory and the report's lead
author. Obesity is linked to heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory disease,
diabetes, hypertension, asthma, sleep apnea, arthritis, degenerative joint
disease, gastric reflux and depression.
But sociologists believe more lies behind the anger.
"In our society , being heavy has become more of a stigma lately because
we're struggling with other issues of consumption," says Abigail Saguy ,
associate professor of sociology at UCLA. -- Marni Jameson, Tribune Newspapers
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