Health care reform without fat hatred?

As I mentioned before we need real health care reform in this country.  For fat people the public option is very important.  Why?  Because fat people who need to get private insurance on their own are often denied access due to their weight. 

Unfortunately some of the debate is heading toward the position of "If only fat people weren't so fat, we wouldn't need reform."  Former surgeon general Richard Camona and his organization STOP believe so and they are sponsored by Sanofi-Aventis (Creator of the diet drug that even the FDA rejected) and Amylin Pharmaceuticals (Diabetes drugs with obesity ones in the works).

According to the article, STOP policymakers suggest this.

• Recognize proven clinical interventions. Studies demonstrate, for example, that shedding just 5 percent to 10 percent of body weight can lower the risk of heart disease and other chronic conditions.
• Enhance the use of preventive services. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends obesity screening for all adults, yet studies show height and weight data often is not recorded during an office visit.
• Foster community programs and polices that encourage and support healthy lifestyes. A community might design public spaces that accommodate walkers and bikers, for example, or sponsor a farmer's market to make fresh produce available to local residents.
• Coordinate research efforts to improve the quality of care, show which interventions work in various settings and translate science into practice.

Now what will happen if we remove the first two "policies"?  We get two policies that promote healthy lifestyles and better health care WITHOUT sigma and includes people of all weight and sizes.  Thin does not mean healthy.

And why are we so fat?  Well Michael Pollan (Now a Persona-non-grata on this blog) thinks that fatties should just lay off big food.  "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are," says Pollan.  Yet despite the fact that smoking is linked to cancers and heart disease, we don't assume everyone with heart disease and cancer are all smokers.  I am also annoyed as I mentioned in earlier blog posts, anything bad associated with being fat is accepted as is (i.e. the flawed Health Affairs' study) and anything that says that maybe being fat is not a death sentence (i.e. the five studies proving those in the Overweight BMI category live the longest) are oftened dismissed or ignored.  Meanwhile we are living longer. 

An article from Connie Schultz is more pleasant, at least putting faces to headless fatties and chastising Cleveland Clinic Toby Cosgrove who thinks all fatties should be fired (Yeah, here come the unemployement checks!) but still shares the questionable $147 billion obesity price tag.  In the end instead of making us villains, we are victims. Some choice, huh?

Fatties are neither.  We are just people who don't need or want to be blamed, victimized or our rights removed. 

Comments

[Pattie]

Include with this the preventable health problems of living with a stigma -- waiting to go to a doctor until it is late, having difficulties finding public places where exercise is possible without harassment and the correlation between poverty and health (yes, stigma = more likely to have lower incomes and live below the poverty line, NOT the other way around as some would have us believe) and you have a disaster in which our public health policy doesn't address the real preventable problems while going out of its way to create health problems through bad drugs, bad diets and bad eating disorders. The price of taking STOP's path is high indeed and while fat people are on the front line of this policy, we are just the most obvious victims. Bad science and bad medicine hurts all persons no matter what their size.

[Sydera]

I haven't read the Michael Pollan op-ed that you linked, and I probably won't because Pollan isn't an expert on obesity, but I think that based on the two books of his that I've read (Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food), that his argument for "real food" over industrial food can be put into service of the FA movement. What he argues for is breaking the system whereby the government's corn subsidy leads to cheaper big macs and coca colas. Brilliantly, the means by which we are to break down the unhealthy chain of industry profits for non-food (or even unsafe food) is to buy local, buy organic, buy humanely-raised, non antibiotic-tainted meat, etc. It comes down to the consumer.

Now, I think I, and other fatties or borderline fatties, would be a whole heck of a lot happier if we ate "real foods." I know buying my vegetables at the farmer's market over the summer made me happy. Before I was worried that somehow local farm food was "dirtier" than the shiny supermarket stuff--so not the case. I got brave enough to order a bison-meat burger at a restaurant--very yummy, and I wouldn't have done it without Pollan urging me to eat a variety of things. Did I lose weight? No. But that wasn't ever the point. The point was that I got sick all the time last year when I was eating Lean Cuisine frozen dinners every night. Now I'm still the same weight, but feeling better.

I think it's best to listen to Pollan on the topic on which he's an expert--industrial food.