From Your Health Journal…..”A great article today from The Dallas Morning News by Jim Landers about obesity and its consequences spreading rapidly around the world. As we know, obesity is on the rise all over, as so many individuals are suffering from risk factors for heart disease, cancers, bone weakness, type 2 diabetes, and other health ailments. The US is getting a really bad reputation around the world as having a server weight problem, but the truth is, it is not just the US, but countries all over the world. Countries across the world are trying to come to grips with this major shift in public health. Japanese companies require employees to undergo annual physicals that include waistline measurements. Men over 33.5 inches and women over 35.4 inches count against the company. If too many fail the test, the firm has to increase its contributions to public health care for the elderly. Please visit The Dallas Morning News web site to read the complete article (link provided below). The author, Jim Landers did a wonderful job.”

From the article…..

Clogged arteries and sedentary lifestyles have replaced germs as the world’s leading killers. Where hunger once held much of the world in its grip, the 1.6 billion overweight and obese now outnumber the malnourished by nearly 2-to-1.

The United States clearly has a weight problem. The World Health Organization says a third of American adults were obese in 2008, and 69.4 percent were overweight. Two years later, WHO said 80 percent of American adult men were overweight, along with 77 percent of women. Obesity accounts for at least $150 billion a year in American health care spending.

But obesity is spreading more rapidly in other parts of the world. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, along with many Pacific island nations, are fatter than the United States. (Most of the adult population of Samoa is obese; in 2008, 46.3 percent of Egyptian women were obese.) Mexican women are heavier than U.S. women, and once the latest data is sifted, Mexican men may eclipse U.S. men as well.

Much of the turnaround reflects advances in public health. In 1900, pneumonia, tuberculosis and childhood diarrhea were the leading killers of Americans. Those were replaced by noninfectious diseases such as heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

That transition has now occurred worldwide. The most recent WHO statistics show that in 2008, 63 percent of deaths around the world were caused by noncommunicable diseases — and that 80 percent of them occurred in low- and middle-income countries. By itself, obesity kills 2.8 million people a year, and it is the fifth-leading risk factor for death worldwide. (The top four risk factors are high blood pressure, tobacco use, raised blood sugar and physical inactivity.)

Some health specialists call these diseases of affluence or civilization. But they place an enormous health care cost burden on society, and lead to many premature deaths as well, WHO officials say. Mexico, for instance, expects the cost to treat obesity-related illnesses like type-2 diabetes will nearly triple by 2017, to $73 billion.

“Yes, we’ve eradicated some of these diseases. Most nations are no longer starving. Nutrition is available for everyone,” said Deborah Clegg, an associate professor of nutrition at the UT Southwestern Medical Center. “But good and healthy calories are not available to everyone.”

Countries across the world are trying to come to grips with this major shift in public health. Japanese companies require employees to undergo annual physicals that include waistline measurements. Men over 33.5 inches and women over 35.4 inches count against the company. If too many fail the test, the firm has to increase its contributions to public health care for the elderly.

To read the full article…..Click here