The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)
In the book Essentials of Healthcare Financing, the author cleverly comes up with a basis through which organizations dealing with healthcare should take into account. He gives ways in which these healthcare organizations can achieve financial control. In this article, I am going to discuss the U.S.A as the healthcare provider in regard to obesity.The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)
There is an obesity epidemic in the USA which is expected to cost the nation if the situation is not looked into (Andreyeva, Sturm, & Ringel, 2004). Bipartisan policy centre said this through a webcast which it held in order to outline its propositions on how to curb this crisis.The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)
An initiative by the bipartisan nutrition and physical program advises communities as well as private groupings to collaborate in enhancing healthy homes, workplaces, societies, as well as learning institutions.
This is according to a report concerning how America’s state of health and increase in rates of obese people endangers the economy. The increasing spending in healthcare in the USA is expected to reach about $4.6 trillion dollars every year and to consume about 19.8 percent of the G.D.P by 2020 (Letourneau, 2012).
Americans are generally overweight and unhealthy. The country uses $2.6 trillion in a year on healthcare. Such spending is the main driver of the country’s debt. In fact, the present healthcare costs could destroy the nation. As the obesity problem escalates, the nation is likely to deal with other difficulties other than the high costs in healthcare.
These issues include the inability of the armed forces to recruit new army personnel and retain qualified military personnel. There is also a high chance of a decline in the workforce productivity due to obesity.The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)
The bipartisan policy centre called on the government and both sides of the political divide to help fight this obesity epidemic. This epidemic is a complicated issue but if we were to work together as a country and wholly as a globe in the fight against it, it would prove to be nothing more than a simple task that we would have dealt with.
In the policy centre’s report, some of the recommendations are worth considering which include one that says schools in the US should improve their physical activity offerings and nutrition, and they should do this in conjunction with the private sector (Blackburn & Walker, 2005).
It has been proposed that Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and several other private institutions collaborate in creating a database of standard workplace health initiatives. This program should be with a rigorous cost benefit analysis to help scale up best practices already in place in the government and also in the private sector.
CDC should also continue with their efforts of collecting and distributing information pertaining food, health fitness, and physical activity among many more other goals. The information propagated also includes awareness on the social determinants of health and their future costs. Bipartisan continues to commend that congress should continue supporting these monitoring and information acquiring functions.The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)
In conclusion, all relevant organizations such as the government, insurance agencies, infirmaries, places of work, and societies have to accept, emphasize, and advance the need for mother’s role in breastfeeding their kids with an objective of significantly augmenting the US breastfeeding rates for the initial six months of a child’s living.
References
Andreyeva, T., Sturm, R., & Ringel, S. (2004). “Moderate and Severe Obesity Have Large Differences in Health Care Costs”, Obesity Research 12 (12): 1936–1943.
Blackburn, G., Walker, W. (2005). “Science-based solutions to obesity: What are the roles of academia, government, industry, and health care?”, The American journal of clinical nutrition, 82 (1): 207-210, PMID 16002821.
Letourneau, R. (2012). Obesity Epidemic Threatens to Bankrupt the Nation. Web.The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Essay (Article)