Posted on 12/20/2009 7:58:34 AM PST by Pining_4_TX
Ideal health risk indices — from BMI, blood pressure, blood sugars to cholesterol — are mostly euphemisms for thin and young. Those who believe that their own good health is because they eat “right,” exercise and have perfect numbers are often young and upper-income and not old enough to experience age-related changes. Their genetic good fortune is not evidence of good behavior, either. Evidence-based research to date has shown these health indices are primarily measures of aging, genetics and social stresses, and not significantly malleable with “healthful” diets and lifestyles. With aging, the “ideal” numbers of healthy 20-year olds cannot be achieved for most workers without taking controversial and risky prescription drugs or temporarily lowered by undergoing mostly ineffective weight loss measures.
Today’s healthism stigmatizes those who don’t follow culturally acceptable lifestyles, or look like they do. It is also accompanied by blaming victims of diseases, such as cancers, diabetes and heart disease, for having brought on their diseases themselves through bad behavior; and by growing age and class discrimination.
(Excerpt) Read more at junkfoodscience.blogspot.com ...
When these programs are fully instituted in Obamacare, I have no doubt they will be used to justify withholding medical care from the people most likely to need it - the sick and the elderly.
From the blog: "Preventive wellness initiatives and disease management, as holistic and intuitively helpful as they may sound, have been shown to raise healthcare costs, and not just because of the additional tests, treatments, diets and lifestyle interventions. Health risk assessments, the key element in employer wellness programs, and screening tests are the gateway to identifying more people for prescription drugs (and other diets, products and interventions offered through health partnerships). These make money for insurers managing healthcare for government- and employer-offered health plans, under the guise of managing health indices (risk factors).
Opportunities for insurers to generate revenue with employer wellness programs go beyond pharmacy benefit management. The personal lifestyle information members reveal are marketing gold mines. Yet, for instance, nowhere among the member information is there a cautionary note telling participants in the State Health Plan that its commercial workplace wellness program and online health risk assessment are not covered under federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy protection. That means participants have no protections in how their personal health information is used or sold."
Thanks for posting this. Unfortunately, there’s seems to be a fair number of Freepers who believe in “healthism”.
You’re welcome.
Unfortunately, I think most Americans believe in healthism. We all like to think we can stay healthy by means of some effort on our part and refuse to accept that we are growing older and that our bodies are going to deteriorate. Nobody gets out of this life alive.
It’s one thing to want to feel good; it’s another to think we have the power to control illness and death. It’s almost a religion at this point.
I have been in a career that does this now and it works. Of course I am in the military and we get weighed in every six months and take a Physical Fitness Test. If there was anyway to implement this to the rest of the United States Population, we would be in a heck of a better situation with regards to Health Care. It is a shame that this can’t or won’t happen...it would be good for everyone.
But it does not work. First, most people have not been able to achieve the numbers presribed by all the “experts”. Second, these wellness programs usually result in increased health care costs for all the counsellors, trainers, dieticians, and most insidious - drugs - that are pushed on people in an effort to get them to reach these certain goals. Third, we are an aging society, and it is neither desirable (from a health standpoint) or possible for older people to have the same weight, muscle mass, or “numbers” as young people. Fourth, (and I know you will not accept this one) there is no evidence that achieving these numbers by current treatment modalities does anything to improve meaningful outcomes in the long term. In fact, older people who have BMIs in the range considered to be overweight (25 - 29) are healthier and live longer than those who are underweight.
I urge people to keep an open mind and look for facts, not what-everyone-knows-is-true. We are being sold a bill of goods. If it makes you feel good to eat a certain way and be at a certain weight, then go for it. However, there is no proof that restrictive eating (whether one calls that dieting or just healthy eating) or any particular lifestlye produces greater longevity than any other.
Read some of the “obesity paradox” posts on the junkfoodscience blog. Also, the books Worried Sick by Nortin Hadler MD, and The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos. Campos is lib who goes off the deep end on social theorizing, but his discussion of the history of weight issues is fascinating. Americans in the 1920s were also convinced that there was an obesity epidemic.
If anything, people should look into the Health at Every Size group. Stop obsessing over numbers and feel good about yourself.
FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.
It’s ok to strive for health, but not to the point that you ignore the medical aspect of care. Vitamins can’t cure illness, plain and simple.
Great blog. Thanks for posting; I have it in my BlogRovr now.
I’m a RN as well, and tend to have the same overview as this blogger.
And, Walter E. Williams for President!
While it’s true that the BMI is junk science, it’s also true that barring some fairly rare ailments you actually do control a lot about your health. I’ve been fat and not fat and it was all me. Ate too much and did no exercise and got fat, cut down on the food and started getting exercise and now I’m not. I’m 40 and healthier than I’ve ever been, great resting heart rate, tons of stamina, strong. The fact is paying attention to what we eat, and getting some exercise and fresh air is actually good for you.
What works? Based on what evidence? If you want to be “fit,” go for it. Just leave me alone, thank you.
WII is good for you. It keeps track of several important stats and provides methods for adjusting them
When my BMI as measured by the WII approaches the boundry between Obese and overweight my indigestion all but disappears, I sleep through the night, all my numbers including the various cholesterol and sugar numbers fall below the limits.
Generally, I feel good.
While it might be hyped, in my case there are benefits from losing weight and exercise.
You are being unnecessarily cynical. I know for a fact that it is possible to cure Type II diabetes using diet.
It’s one thing to have an opinion on nutrition, but quite another to start dictating to others on what their habits should be. The nutrition debate on many levels is similar to the global warming debate where groups are trying to create a consensus on the term “healthy”. I don’t know how you can resolve the differences between Atkins and the food pyramid or between low-fat and low-carb. I choose to be a skeptic.
I haven’t seen anyone talking about coercion here. It just states that people with certain risk factors need to pay more for their healthcare. Does it make a difference that the employer is the government ? I don’t know.
People need to take responsibility for our own health.
Insurance is meant to be a safety net, not training wheels.
However, the underlying problem is that the government, Big Pharma and Big Grain are pushing in the wrong direction. I suspect this won’t be fixed anytime soon. Too much money to be made.
Gee, I think they already do something like this in China, and probably North Korea.
Oh, by the way what happens to those that fail to meet the weight standards? Never mind, I probably already know, same thing that happens to old people when they can't carry the load.
I am told that in the Alaskan Indian culture old people were expected to crawl out on an ice flow and die or be eaten, or both.
Well, I must have misunderstood your position. In places like Boulder, Colorado, health really is like a religion. I do not find it unnecessarily cynical to think that many people obsessed with health are wasting their time, money, and energy.
Yes, I agree with your other points that less insurance and more personal responsibility would be preferable to our current system.
I am not informed enough on your last point to concur or argue against, but I wouldn’t doubt the existence of nefarious influences on the whole nutrition and wellness debate.
As far a Atkins, all I can say is it works, period. I use nearly a quart of heavy cream a day along with my other meat proteins, and I will put my Cholesterol stats up agains anyone on this board, HbAic as well. I am 71 years old, and old people have more problems, because we aren't young, if people are lucky they all get to that point.
Under Government health care we will be nudged into that sweet goodnight, gently or otherwise.
It’s funny how much people are willing to go out of their way to denounce Atkins. I know a lot of people with similar success stories.
How do you know that? I believe that you are saying when the numbers go down, then you are cured. That is like saying when the cough is gone, the pneumonia is cured.
There is much more to diabetes than just blood sugar values. Whether keeping numbers within the currently acceptable range, results in a reduction in ABSOLUTE risk of complications has not been proven by any study.(BTW, they keep changing the definition of normal and making it lower. Since we are all getting older, in a few years, we will all be considered to be diabetic. Everyone’s blood sugar levels increase with age.) The studies done to date have been tweaked and twisted until the results say what the researchers wanted them to say, and the results are reported in terms of reduction of relative risk.
Relative risk, as I understand it, is if 2 people in the control group have a heart attack and 1 person in the treatment group has a heart attack, then those promoting said treatment can claim that there was a 50% reduction in the risk for a heart attack in those patients using their treatment. Mathmeticians and scientists out there, am I correct?
In the rush to treat the numbers, the real goal of reducing morbidity and mortality from diabetes has been forgotten.
Diabetes is basically broken glucose metabolism.
Why not run your body on a different fuel ?
There are some ways diabetes indirectly affects you.
1. High blood sugars damage nerves, kidneys, etc.
(Thiamine/Benfotiamine is protective, but diabetes patients are typically deficient)
2. Insulin resistance means that larger amounts of insulin are needed to drive glucose into the cells. Large amounts of insulin is bad.
3. Ketoacidosis.
None of these things will happen if you’re running your body on fat rather than glucose. Your body doesn’t need much insulin if your glycogen stores are not full.
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