Obesity Is Not Just a Major Health Problem - Research Paper Example

?OBESITY Every year thousands of people worldwide die due to Obesity. More than being a mere condition, it has emerged as one of the biggest damages caused to human body. In simple terms obesity can be defined as a condition in which the human body accumulates excess fat to an extent that it has negative effects over the body. A person is considered obese if the total body weight is more than 20% of the ideal weight that he must have. (Medical News Today) Obesity is a major problem in our society today and research into the extent of this epidemic has revealed that the number of obese people in America is increasing at an alarming rate. In 1991 the situation was bad enough and one in every eight Americans was obese. By 1999, the situation had worsened and one in every five Americans was obese (Murphy). Now, according to the findings of a recently published research report one in every three Americans is obese. This stat is extremely alarming for America as a country (Hammond and Levine). Obesity causes some serious health dangers to people who suffer from it. Some of the biggest dangers caused by obesity are: Coronary heart disease: this condition involves build up of a substance of plaque in the coronary arteries and as a result blood flow to the heart muscle is restricted. This condition can sometimes lead to a heart attack as well. Obesity can also result in high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, and stroke. Cancer: Obese people are also more likely to develop different types of cancers. Reproductive Problems: Obesity can cause menstrual irregularities and infertility in women. Sleep apnea: obesity also causes sleep apnea which cause breathing irregularities in sleep. (Aga Khan Health Services) The damages caused to individuals, societies and America as a whole by obesity are not limited to these health dangers however as obesity also causes a great amount of damage to our economy as well. Let us take a detailed look at these economic impacts: The most obvious impact of obesity on the American economy is in the form of direct medical costs. Several studies have been conducted to look into the hypothesis that the direct medical costs of obese people are much higher than those of non-obese people. One study which compared the medical cost of obese and non obese people revealed that obese group’s accumulated direct medical costs were on average 36% higher than the non obese group’s costs per annum. It is interesting to note that this higher average cost included prescriptions costs higher by 105% and primary health costs higher by 39%. The higher medical costs phenomenon is not just limited to adults and extends to children as well. In fact, the economic impact of childhood obesity is much higher than that of adult obesity. One study about this subject revealed that the annual direct medical costs of childhood obesity in the United States can be estimated as $14.3 billion. The misery of these costs on the economy is compounded by the fact that current childhood obesity implies future direct medical costs as well given that these obese children and adolescents will most probably become obese adults when they grow up. (Hammond and Levine) Obesity also impacts the US economy majorly in the form of productivity costs. Productivity costs refer to the damage suffered by the economy mainly due to absenteeism and presenteeism. Absenteeism can be defined as productivity costs incurred due to employees being absent from work because of obesity caused health problems. Presenteeism, on the other hand, can be defined as productivity costs incurred owing to the diminished productivity of labors at work. Other aspects of productivity costs include premature deaths and loss of quality adjusted life, higher rates of disability benefit payments, and welfare loss in the health insurance market. Let us take a closer look at the impact of productivity costs on the US economy. Absenteeism: Studies looking to discover a causal association between absenteeism and obesity have majorly been successful in identifying a positive and statistically significant correlation. A research conducted about the impact of absenteeism in the North American division of Shell Oil Company revealed that “3.73 additional days of work were lost per year for each obese employee relative to their normal weight co-worker” (Hammond and Levine). A similar research revealed that “employees considered at risk for obesity were 1.23 times more likely to be in the high absenteeism group than those who were not” (Hammond and Levine). Another research revealed that “obese workers are 194% more likely to use paid time off than their non obese counterparts”. (Hammond and Levine) Presenteeism: A mixture of physical and mental health conditions more common among obese workers negatively impact productivity. This statement has been proven true through research on many occasions. One such study which aimed to calculate the Lost Productive Time, which can be defined as the sum of absenteeism and presenteeism, of employees at an organization found that “the monetary value of the cost of excess LPT among obese workers can be estimated at $11.7 billion per annum.” (Hammond and Levine) Disability: Obesity also leads to an increase in disability payments and disability insurance premiums. An increase in the disability rolls also represents higher fiscal costs to the government. A research looking to uncover the impact of obesity on disability and disability payments revealed that “being obese raises the probability of receiving disability payments by 6.92 percentage points in males while for women it is 5.94 percentage points” (Hammond and Levine). The impact of these percentage points can be better understood if the understand that 6.92 points are equivalent to losing 15.9 years of education while 5.94 percentage points are equivalent to losing 16.7 years of education. (Hammond and Levine) Impact on Quality adjusted life: A study looking to measure the Quality adjusted life of individuals by using the quality of well-being scale revealed that “obese individuals were found to have 0.046 lower QWB scores on average. This figure translates into 2.93 million Quality Adjusted Life Years lost at the national level.” (Hammond and Levine) Transportation Cost: Another major impact of obesity is on the transportation costs. Only when we consider the fact that one in three Americans is obese nowadays can we understand the full extent of this problem. More obese Americans means that more fuel and potentially, larger vehicles are needed to transport the same amount of commuters and travelers each year. This phenomenon not only produces a direct cost in the form of greater spending on fuel, but also produces an indirect cost in the form of greater greenhouse gas emissions. (Hammond and Levine) Research on this subject using US Department of Transportation figures for the fuel needed to transport a given amount of cargo by air and data on the number of passenger mile flown has revealed that “owing to the increase in obesity from 1990 to 2000, 350 million extra gal of jet fuel was required in the year 2000. This amount of fuel translates in to $275 million if the prevailing price of $.75 is used.” (Hammond and Levine) Thus, to conclude we can say that obesity is not just a major health problem, which can end up causing life threatening diseases such as Cancer, and coronary heart problems, but also a major economic burden on America. Every year obesity related problems cost the country billions of dollars in the form of direct medical, productivity, and transportation costs. Works Cited Aga Khan Health Services. Manual for Health Educators. Karachi, 2010. Hammond, Ross A and Ruth Levine. "The Economic Impact of Obesity in the United States." Dove press journal: Diabetes,Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy (2010). Medical News Today. What is Obesity? What is BMI? 15 October 2011 . Murphy, Jenny. The Super-sizing of America: Are fast food chains to blame for the nation's obesity? 15 June 2000. 02 November 2011 . Read More