Bad health habits slow US & World economy....

Today's post: Friday, 3-13-2009

Three recent news stories are more than a bit scary for the US and World’s economy, particularly now that we are fighting to overcome a world wide recession.

Taken together they show that bad health habits are now slowing US & World economies. And the problem is getting worse; and will get much worse soon.

1. Rates of obesity and related diseases, notably type 2 diabetes, are climbing in most countries in the world.

2. The age range of 65 and older is when the average person most needs expensive medical care. The average health habits of most people in the United States have been worse for people turning 65 now then they were for people who turned 65 20 years ago. So there will be an increase in medical care spending in the United States because of this. But it will be an unusually steep increase in medical care spending because the huge baby boom generation is just beginning to turn 65.

3. The United States now pays more per capita than other countries while people here tend to NOT be as healthy. So it looks like our medical care system is not that great.

But of most importance, it means that the United States is literally competing with the other countries in the world economy at a significant cost disadvantage. It’s quite literally like trying to win a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back or win a race while carrying a 95 pound backpack your competitors don’t have.

The medical system in the United States can do much better than it does now by addressing the real problem causing all this. But it’s not THAT much worse than the medical systems in the other parts of the world.

The real problem is that the United States has the worst health habits and the worst food and drink, healthwise in the world. And, as I’ve posted about before, we are the most sedentary.

To be sure, there are a large absolute number of people in the United States who do know what good health habits are and who practice them every day. That includes me and many people reading this. But we are too much of a minority so far to move the average enough to change the overall picture.

Here are the areas we need to address to change this horrible situation.:

The United States is home to many of the world’s most economically successful food and drink companies. They have done well by making convenient food and drink that looks and tastes good at a low, or seemingly low, prices – and which has a high shelf life and is uniform in apparent quality. And they’ve done a great job in marketing and selling this food and drink. So most people in the United States think it’s normal and desirable and are used to that kind of food and drink and almost nothing else.

The problem is that providing food and drink that avoids causing health problems and which is nutritious and supports good health has simply NOT been any kind of consideration in this development. In fact, since doing these things increases costs; often reduces shelf life; and must be done often with more skilled and better paid people, those considerations have been the enemy to be fought off in many cases.

The news stories above show, conclusively as far as I’m concerned, that even if we don’t care about the avoidable illness, suffering, and early death these things cause individual people, we simply cannot afford to allow this situation to continue because of the huge braking effect it puts on our economy.

And, unless we change this food and drink system dramatically, we will simply be unable to tweak our medical care enough to matter economically even if we do the tweaking well. The analogy of re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind.

The good news is that we DO know which foods, drinks, and their ingredients cause these problems. We DO know what foods and drinks tend to avoid health harm and to support good health. AND, we know three ways that work that can make this situation change.

Refined grain foods are bad for human health. Compared with whole grain foods or beans, nuts, and/or vegetables they are much higher in glycemic effect while being lower in nutrients and fiber that support health and turn off hunger. As a result, they tend to cause obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Sugar and more shelf stable and/or artificial sweeteners have proven to be bad for human health even though relatively light consumption of foods with real sugar by people in good health who exercise regularly is not.

Fats from grain fed and/or penned animals are harmful to human health even though fats from animals that can move freely and eat their natural diet tend not to be harmful in part because those animals are much leaner with less total fat and in part because the fats in grain fed and/or penned animals has bioconcentrated antibiotics, growth hormones, and pesticide and herbicide residue while this is NOT the case or dramatically less the case with naturally fed animals that can move freely and been well tended.

Organic produce has been repeatedly shown to be more nutritious and health supporting than produce grown with herbicides and pesticides in addition to not having residues of those things in the food produced.

Although one day there may be farmed fish that is different, farmed fish today have all the problems of grain fed meat while wild caught fish usually do not. Farmed fish may even have MORE health damaging pollutants than grain fed land animals.

And, hydrogenated and otherwise chemically processed oils, particularly those high in omega 6 oils have been found harmful to health.

Soft drinks are literally the worst kind of thing made to drink in terms of their impact on human health. The standard kind adds calories while in addition to not making people less hungry initially tends to make them hungrier a few hours after they are drunk than the people drinking them would otherwise be. Diet soft drinks have virtually the same effect in practice mostly because the bodies of the people drinking them demand the sugar fix from other sources that the sweet taste causes them to expect. (And, as we posted about yesterday, many of the artificial sweeteners used may cause disease directly in some people.)

So what are the fixes for this problem?

I. Businesses, particularly the most competent ones, will make the most profitable products they can. That is the reality and NOT a problem in and of itself. So one solution is to tax the bad stuff enough that the safer and more nutritious alternatives can be delivered for less money to the customer and more profit to the providers.

Some health harmful foods such as hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup that contains mercury should simply be outlawed world wide. Cigarettes also fit here in part because the second hand smoke severely harms people who did not choose to smoke them

But for very bad but less harmful foods and those that should be outlawed but have not yet been outlawed, we CAN tax them very heavily. Cigarettes fit here until they are outlawed as do many kinds of food. All soft drinks clearly fit here. Highly salted foods and refined grains fit here.

And, for less harmful foods that can be eaten in small quantities occasionally by healthy people who exercise regularly such as sugar or such as alcoholic drinks that are actually beneficial but only if you go easy on how many you drink, they can be taxed less but should be taxed enough to cause high amounts of consumption to be too expensive for most people to pay.

II. The tax breaks and other incentives now given producers of the kinds of food that cause health harm should be withdrawn though this may have to be a very gradual process to avoid economic harm and effective political lobbying to prevent it.

But, we can and should give very strong incentives to producers who produce foods that are safe and which do support human health right away. That way some of the better businesses will switch to providing such foods where they would have paid to avoid turning off their existing incentives to produce the bad stuff.

III. The one interest group that is now usually part of this problem but which has the most incentive to solve it is employers.

In the United States, employers pay much of the unnecessary and avoidable health care costs that solving this problem would eliminate.

And, in all countries, when employees are out sick or out at daytime visits to the doctor or hospital for treatment, they are NOT at work being productive.

In addition, when employees think less well, have less energy, feel rotten or are worried about their health problems or how to pay for their medical care, or begin to have trouble thinking well or remembering, they are clearly far less productive than they otherwise would be.

Last but far from least, if a key employee dies on the job, gets a terminal illness, or becomes incapacitated by health problems, it can cause severe dislocations and problems to their employer. Good health practices at the workplace can help prevent these problems

Meanwhile employers all over the country do these things NOW that help CAUSE the problem:

They often provide or OK the placement in their facilities of vending machines with soft drinks, dessert treats, and snacks made virtually 100 % from things that are harmful to human health.

They condone the use of foods that are again made of things that their employees should not eat at all or eat often in the social events held in their businesses or actually provide them free at business meetings.

Such foods and drinks do look and taste good; and NOW when most people don’t really understand how harmful they are to consume and they are considered normal indulgences that “everyone else” consumes and thinks normal, only the best informed and most health motivated of their employees avoid this stuff.

It costs employers about ten times or more as much in future avoidable health care costs and lowered competence and productivity in their employees to do this.

But until our largest and best known employers completely stop doing these things and know WHY to do so and publicize how much their health care costs drop and their productivity rises, this situation will remain the same.

So, in summary, the best way to improve the productivity of medicine and lower its costs is OUTSIDE of the practice of medicine and how it is paid for.

We need to tax the foods that harm health to consume or over consume until they cost more than those that support health. We need to tax extremely harmful foods so heavily they are rarely consumed or outlaw them.

We need to immediately give incentives and tax breaks to the providers and sellers of foods and drinks that support health and very gradually withdraw it from providers and sellers of foods and drinks that harm health.

And, we need all employers to switch from enabling the consumption of health harmful foods and drinks or providing them directly to banning them from their workplaces and providing alternatives.