Today the local rag ran a front pager on obesity, or rather what the govt wants to do about it. Accessible bariatric surgery seems to be the main suggestion. Of course, the vast majority of such stomach stapling procedures currently occur in private hospitals (96% is the figure quoted). Not surprising given the $15k price tag. And that's why the govt was talking about it - pushing accessible and available gut jobs into the public health system makes this a generic tax payer issue rather than an elitist elective option. Now, whenever our sagacious leaders want to sell us an idea they have to convince the audience of the benefits and savings that are sure to eventuate (reduction in medical costs to treat physical and mental conditions associated with obesity). Of course, there is no way in hell we know if this will pay off like they say - a simple google search will tell you that morbidly obese patients are prone to surgical and post-procedural complications at the best of times, complications that also cost a shitload of money to treat.
But Australia is urged to do something about being too fat. The above-mentioned article states that :
"The 2007-08 National Health Survey (which measures the exact height and weight of adults and children using the Body Mass Index approach) found that 68 per cent of adult men and 55 per cent of adult women are overweight or obese."
It's just a pity that the difference between being morbidly obese, obese or just overweight was not clarified (it's explained wiki-wise here). Or that the method used (BMI) is over 160 years old and the least accurate way of determining actual obesity. I'm not discounting the issue as being over-represented (hell, for all I know, it's underestimated), just that these sorts of vague generalisations when it comes to stats that are meant to support huge tax investments should be better researched.
If the govt does go ahead and offer eligible obese folk the chance to have surgeons to play balloon animals with their guts, I wonder what some borderline problem eaters will do? "I'm currently sitting on 33% body fat. I could diet like hell for 12 months and reduce it to a healthy 20%, or I could double-up on Macca's for only 3 months and hit the magic 40% that'll get me a free lap band and let me then reach my ideal weight in half the time!" Yes, that's exactly how my mind works.
In a related topic, my prime compadre was telling me last week that he was watching a local ep of Today Tonight all about fat kids. He's a bit of an armchair sceptic like myself so he had a few questions about the program. After watching it myself, so do I. The segment was fuelled by a recent CSIRO study into children's health and eating habits, stating that 25% of the little shits were overweight or obese (once again, no distinction between the two). They also said kids eat too much sugar and fat, and not enough fruit or milk (ironically kids probably think that milk will make them fat). Some paediatric doc from the Women's & Children's Hosp also appeared to tell us that bad things happen as tubby sprogs become tubby grown ups. Bad things also happen for a lot of skinny kids come adulthood, because apparently another 43% of us inflate to unhealthy proportions anyway. Then there was the comfortably middle-class mum of 3 kids (none of whom seemed even a little tubby in their private school uniforms) squealing her alarms from her tv quality kitchen.
But what Shane was curious about (given his kids are lean and mean despite eating like machines) was how the CSIRO got these stats in the first place, as he couldn't recall his kids recently being sedated long enough to be weighed and measured by a lab-coated stranger in the first place. Electric scales hidden under the classroom seats? he suggested. Or, as a friend of ours pointed out on FB, maybe they got hold of some PE records with said measurements. Given the reported combined data (that also measured food intake habits and exercise) presented by the CSIRO, I'm guessing a survey was conducted at some random schools. Regardless, the facts are once again so watered down and generalised as to be rendered meaningless for anything less than a basic and unoriginal health message - if you keep eating crap you'll end up crap.
To me the answer is simple: tax people according to their body fat score in proportion to how much it exceeds the norm. Oh, and have a similar penalty for those significantly underweight too so as to discourage eating disorders.
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