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Oct. 5th, 2009 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleribEver since I read this (NC's state employee 'wellness' program) I've been worried about this (similar proposed federal legislation for the health care reform bill).
"Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee approved a healthcare reform amendment that would penalize employees who are not following “healthy lifestyles” and participating in wellness programs. Employers will be allowed to raise healthcare premiums by as much as 50 percent for workers who are fat, smoke, don’t exercise, are noncompliant with preventive care, and not meeting certain health measures, such as lower cholesterol levels."
So... even if I'm eating a healthy 1800 calorie/day diet, complete with whole grains, fresh veggies and lean meat, and getting my RDA of exercise, and if my cholesterol and blood pressure and other vitals are all in the healthy range, because I'm obese, they can still charge me for it.
Please no "but you're not fat!" comments. My BMI is 31.7 - that's medically obese, folks. I are the obesity epidemic, oh noes.
Now at this moment - hell, for the past two years of moments - I haven't been doing the healthy lifestyle thing all that well. Something about the small person who needs my love and attention more than I think I need the gym. I'm trying to figure out a way to do it all, but have you ever tried taking a brisk walk with a two-year old?
But, from 2003 - 2007, I was living la vida healthy, including a stint of calorie-counting. See, to my personal trainer's amazement, despite 3.5 hours of cardio and 3 of weight-training a week, I wasn't losing any weight. Clearly, I must be snarfing doughnuts at home, right? So we started monitoring what I ate. We tried a 2,000 calorie diet first, which was *more* food than I was used to. No loss. 1800 calories - 5 small meals a day - felt great most days, no weight loss. 1500 calories - I started to lose. A little. And I was always hungry. Always. Even right after I ate, because a 300-calorie "meal" (5x/day) was just not enough food.
So you know, screw that.
But there I was - eating healthy, exercising - "all" you have to do to lose weight, according to some people - and it wasn't happening. It's never going to happen. At most, at very most, I've lost 5-6 pounds when I've adopted a more active lifestyle. That's not uncommon. But that's not even enough to change my BMI by one point, let alone 5 or more.
And the BMI is crap anyway. But that's another topic.
But they still want to use it to determine my insurance premiums.
Here's to really hoping the 'public option' does not become the 'single payer option' anytime in the next few decades. Or that my current insurance decides to jump on this pseudoscientific bandwagon.
"Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee approved a healthcare reform amendment that would penalize employees who are not following “healthy lifestyles” and participating in wellness programs. Employers will be allowed to raise healthcare premiums by as much as 50 percent for workers who are fat, smoke, don’t exercise, are noncompliant with preventive care, and not meeting certain health measures, such as lower cholesterol levels."
So... even if I'm eating a healthy 1800 calorie/day diet, complete with whole grains, fresh veggies and lean meat, and getting my RDA of exercise, and if my cholesterol and blood pressure and other vitals are all in the healthy range, because I'm obese, they can still charge me for it.
Please no "but you're not fat!" comments. My BMI is 31.7 - that's medically obese, folks. I are the obesity epidemic, oh noes.
Now at this moment - hell, for the past two years of moments - I haven't been doing the healthy lifestyle thing all that well. Something about the small person who needs my love and attention more than I think I need the gym. I'm trying to figure out a way to do it all, but have you ever tried taking a brisk walk with a two-year old?
But, from 2003 - 2007, I was living la vida healthy, including a stint of calorie-counting. See, to my personal trainer's amazement, despite 3.5 hours of cardio and 3 of weight-training a week, I wasn't losing any weight. Clearly, I must be snarfing doughnuts at home, right? So we started monitoring what I ate. We tried a 2,000 calorie diet first, which was *more* food than I was used to. No loss. 1800 calories - 5 small meals a day - felt great most days, no weight loss. 1500 calories - I started to lose. A little. And I was always hungry. Always. Even right after I ate, because a 300-calorie "meal" (5x/day) was just not enough food.
So you know, screw that.
But there I was - eating healthy, exercising - "all" you have to do to lose weight, according to some people - and it wasn't happening. It's never going to happen. At most, at very most, I've lost 5-6 pounds when I've adopted a more active lifestyle. That's not uncommon. But that's not even enough to change my BMI by one point, let alone 5 or more.
And the BMI is crap anyway. But that's another topic.
But they still want to use it to determine my insurance premiums.
Here's to really hoping the 'public option' does not become the 'single payer option' anytime in the next few decades. Or that my current insurance decides to jump on this pseudoscientific bandwagon.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 01:13 pm (UTC)Hopefully, the public option dies screaming in agony and some real reforms get introduced.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 01:47 pm (UTC)I know slender people who live essentially the same lifestyle I do, or "worse" (with more fast food and soda for example). But because they're skinny, they're clearly healthy. And because I'm fat, I'm clearly not. And it's ridiculous, given that we can measure, cheaply and quickly, a host of *actual* health measures like blood pressure, cholesterol, insulin response, and so on.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 02:14 pm (UTC)True. But that sounds dangerously close to "actual work" and "research" and it's far easier to stick to one definition of unhealthy. -:-)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 03:05 pm (UTC)I have heard that this is so, but I'd put no more weight (no pun intended) on it than the usual "I heard from a friend that..."
The medical community has done a lot of investigation, actually, going back at least to the Minnesota Starvation Study (conducted to see how to best feed populations in Europe that had been on strict rations towards the end of WWII). And every single time, the results come in that for 95-98% of us, diets and "lifestyle changes" do not result in permanent weight loss. It comes back, typically within five years, and often with earned interest. And oh, weight cycling itself is correlated with some health problems.
Never mind the mental health issues!
Scratch most of the 'obesity hysteria' articles, and you'll find that they were sponsored by some company involved in the diet industry. It doesn't help that the media reports on them accompanied by the infamous "headless fatty" pictures, showing people who make up less than 10% of the population and implying that they represent the 2/3 of us who are overweight or obese.
I'm a little rabid over the whole thing because I'm a recent convert to fat acceptance and Health At Every Size. Shapely Prose (http://kateharding.net), along with Junkfood Science linked above, were my gateways into the thing. It's multifaceted - some aspects deal with fat and health, others deal with just being fat, regardless of health. But it's a marvelous source of empirical evidence that Diet's Don't Work, that it's Not About Willpower, and that You're Not Bad or Lazy.
Because seriously? If there was a diet or 'lifestyle change' that worked, wouldn't we all be doing it by now and be skinny?
I am all for eating right and exercising, because those are healthy behaviors, but I no longer expect to lose weight when I do them. I hope to be healthier. (And know what? It's not like that's guaranteed either! People get sick and it isn't fair! Life != Fair, alas.)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 07:28 pm (UTC)The smaller you are, the harder it is to lose weight. AND the less you have to lose, the harder it is. I have been obese since I cant remember when (though I do have pictures of me as a skinny little girl around 4/5 years old.)
Obesity is a symptom, not a disease. It is the result of the overprocessed foods we feed ourselves to maintain our modern lifestyles. Chips and soda, Corn Syrup, Fast food. And dont get me started on the chemicals and pesticides used to ensure crop yeilds...
I dont really know what to do about it, but I do know that legislation punishing the obese is not going to help anything. Its just going to make it even more of a sin to be fat.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 07:41 pm (UTC)There's growing evidence for a strong genetic component - almost as strong as for height. You know how with better nutrition, a population can increase its overall mean height? Like in Japan? But even with the best nutrition in the world, you aren't going to start seeing NBA superstars flooding out of Japan.
I could eat only 100% organic fresh foods and I'd still probably have the same body shape as my aunt and father. Good sturdy peasant stock (http://developmentalidealism.org/imagery/europe.html), dontcha know? :)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-05 07:56 pm (UTC)However... for me, I know I could eat better and be a healthier weight. But that is another problem all together.
bouncing blood sugar + Emotional Eating + Allergic to wheat does not an easy diet make.
I need a personal chef and or assistant who plans my meals then makes them for me, and keeps track of all my medical appointments.