>>>Cry me a river. Did they lose weight or quit smoking ? I sure as hell don’t want to subsidize the added medical charges incurred by the people not taking care of themselves.<<<
I’m 57 years old.
My resting heart rate is 60 beats per minute. My blood pressure is about 115/65. My cholestrerol levels are low. I can run one mile in about seven minutes. I work out every three days at the local gym, walking two miles at a brisk pace, then using weights for about 45 minutes. As a joke, I recently arm wrestled the star athlete on our community’s high school basketball team and beat him in about 20 seconds. I sleep well, don’t smoke or use drugs, and I’m told by every medical professional I meet that I’m in remarkably good shape for a man my age. I eat a healthy combination of meat which is hunted from animals living nearby (I live in Alaska), fish from the river, and vegetables from the garden. I don’t drink very often. The only medical problem I have is gout, which flares up about once each year.
My body mass index is about 31.5, which means that I’m obese. According to the government, I’m a fat pig who deserves to be last in line because my BMI indicates that it is so. Can I lose weight? Probably, but only at a risk to my health. But when you’re being looked at by numbers on a page, you lose the humanity of the person.
Your response about not wanting to subsidize people not taking care of themselves is one of the less commented on aspects of state-run health care. Socialized medicine tears apart communities as people start feeling envy, or disgust, at “paying for” neighbors who might not be “taking care of themselves.” Let’s say you need medical care but you haven’t done the right things to prepare for it. Would you like me to say “cry me a river,” or would you like me to be helpful and sympathetic? Of course, with state-run care, there are no tears - just a rubric outlining who gets what. My BMI pegs me as someone I am not. Maybe yours does, too, in a manner you’re not aware of. Yet.
If you want to cry a river, cry for our country.
God help us.
I wasn’t advocating the particular measure and agree that CVS needs to be educated on its accuracy. The majority of NFL running backs would come in as morbidly obese by that standard. Perhaps waist to hip ratio is a more precise indicator of body fat ?
The real issue at hand is that obesity accounts for more than 20% of our medical spending and raises the risk of a host of chronic medical conditions.