HEALTH-CARE PART 2

A couple of Tuesdays ago I wrote on palliative care—the palliative care that people need at the end of their lives to help them die with dignity. This week--another kind of palliative care.

Palliative is defined as: relieving pain or alleviating a problem without dealing with the underlying cause. I’ve always thought of palliative like a band-aide of sorts; it covers what we don’t want to see, while we wait for it to go away. The biggest (pardon the pun here) palliative problem in America is not end-of-life care—it’s obesity.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that one-third of American children and adolescents are obese or overweight. Most people know that obesity causes cardiovascular disease, diabetes, contributes to many cancers, including breast and colon, and exacerbates joint problems. Yet, we continue with our unhealthy eating habits and allow our kids to do the same; we see our doctors and use medicine to treat the symptoms, while ignoring the cause. We want to eat our cake and have it too. In this case, the cake is probably fast food and sugary sodas, and having it too is still wanting to be slim and healthy. This is America—why can’t we have it all?

Time magazine reported that as a nation we are spending more than 147 billion dollars a year on diet-related illness. Yet, how many politicians have you heard talking about the cost of obesity on the health-care system? Politicians like telling people what they want to hear and people do not like to hear that they are fat. At some point, politicians are going to have to start telling people some hard truths. Warning: this will not be the last time you see the previous statement in this blog!

I recently attended a dinner party with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Mr. Pollan has done extensive research on what we eat and how food gets from its sources in nature to our plates--he is a proponent of local and sustainable eating. There was good discussion on why Americans are overweight and what we should do about it. I took away these salient points from the evening: Policy is needed to help get America’s obesity problem under control, whether it be redirecting farm subsidies toward more healthy foods, or putting a tax on sugary drinks. We need to limit the number of sugary sodas we consume. And, we need to cook—Mr. Pollan stressed that almost anything we cook at home is healthier than fast food.

I would like to focus on the relationship between sodas, obesity and health-care.

The soda companies are, I’m sure, encouraging politicians to leave sodas out of the health-care conversation. They are also running ads that assume that we are all incredibly stupid. Have you seen the one with the mom getting her bags with several liters of soda out of her mini-van? She tells the camera that money is tight. She warns Washington to not put a tax on soda. Some very brave politician (is this an oxymoron?) needs to call a press conference, look into the camera and explain to this mom, and moms across the country: Yes, I know that money is tight and I think I can help you. Turn on the water facet—it’s easy, it’s non-caloric, it’s healthy, it’s safe, and it will save you money. Yes, I know that your kids will object, but you are the mom and you love them, and you want them to be healthy.

Did you know that a twelve-ounce can of soda has approximately 10 teaspoons of sugar? Can you imagine putting 10 packets of sugar in your tall latte (the smallest size at Starbucks and also 12 ounces)? If you need more reasons to limit soda intake, then you should know that they are also very acidic and hard on tooth enamel, and the phosphorus that causes them to fizz also causes calcium to be leeched from bones.

I don’t think that the government is responsible for keeping us healthy. However, because obesity is a burden on our health-care dollars (this affects our premiums), because sugar is so closely associated with obesity, and because soda has no nutritional benefits, it should have a sugar tax like cigarettes have a tobacco tax, and the tax should go directly to off-set health-care costs.

Politicians need to make some hard choices on health-care; a tax on sugary drinks would be a good place to start.