“Trust Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3: 5-6
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Obesity in the U.S. Tops 40%, Morbid Obesity Tops 10%
The latest U.S. obesity statistics were published today. See “The U.S. Obesity Rate Now Tops 40%”.
More than 40% of the U.S. population is obese, and more than 10% of the U.S. population is morbidly obese.
In 1985, I was a professor at the University of Virginia teaching strategy and leadership. The latest obesity statistics at that time were reported just before spring break by Dr. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General of the United States.
I’ll never forget that day. Koop’s report revealed that 25% of U.S. citizens were officially obese. I told my leadership students about it. I said, “Our country is in serious trouble.”
Koop decided to make obesity a national priority. He presented data showing that our “normal weight tables” were inaccurate. What we call “normal weight” isn’t normal. It’s too high. Koop’s data led him to conclude that we needed to correct our “normal weight tables” so they would reflect reality, and the reality blew my mind.
I thought an obesity rate of 25% was shocking, but Koop’s data revealed that the real obesity rate was higher than that. To me, correcting the “normal weight tables” seemed sensible and logical, but general practitioners (GPs) went ballistic. They organized an effort to prevent Koop from correcting the tables, even though they admitted that Koop was right.
The GPs’ logic was disturbing. They told Koop that their overweight and obese patients could not or would not lose weight. Most of those who tried failed. The GPs said that correcting the “normal weight tables” could cause many of their overweight and obese patients to go into clinical depression.
That’s ridiculous logic. People need to know the truth.
The GPs won. Koop didn’t correct the “normal weight tables”. To this day, what we call “normal weight” is still too high. So, the data that was just released is inaccurate. Much more than 40% of the U.S. population is obese, and much more than 10% of the U.S. population is morbidly obese.
The Effects of Obesity
The effects of obesity are staggering. See “Adult Obesity Causes & Consequences”. It’s a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Below are some of the findings:
Health Consequences of Obesity
- All-causes of death (mortality)
- High blood pressure (Hypertension)
- High LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, or high levels of triglycerides (Dyslipidemia)
- Type 2 diabetes
- Coronary heart disease
- Stroke
- Gallbladder disease
- Osteoarthritis (a breakdown of cartilage and bone within a joint)
- Sleep apnea and breathing problems
- Many types of cancers
- Low quality of life
- Mental illness such as clinical depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders
- Body pain and difficulty with physical functioning
Weight gain leading to obesity doesn’t sneak up on people. Excess weight accumulates slowly over time. If those extra pounds are ignored, eventually people become obese. When they reach that state, losing weight seems impossible. Even so, they need to know the truth.
National Estimated Costs of Obesity
The medical care costs of obesity in the United States are high. In 2008 dollars, these costs were estimated to be $147 billion.
The annual nationwide productive costs of obesity obesity-related absenteeism range between $3.38 billion ($79 per obese individual) and $6.38 billion ($132 per individual with obesity).
In addition to these costs, data shows implications of obesity on recruitment by the armed forces. An assessment was performed of the percentage of the US military-age population that exceeds the US Army’s current active duty enlistment standards for weight-for-height and percent body fat, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. In 2007-2008, 5.7 million men and 16.5 million women who were eligible for military service exceeded the Army’s enlistment standards for weight and body fat.
Childhood Obesity is Just as Bad
See “Childhood Obesity Facts”:
Childhood obesity is a serious problem in the United States putting children and adolescents at risk for poor health. Obesity prevalence among children and adolescents is still too high.
For children and adolescents aged 2-19 years:
- The prevalence of obesity was 18.5% and affected about 13.7 million children and adolescents.
- Obesity prevalence was 13.9% among 2- to 5-year-olds, 18.4% among 6- to 11-year-olds, and 20.6% among 12- to 19-year-olds. Childhood obesity is also more common among certain populations.
- Hispanics (25.8%) and non-Hispanic blacks (22.0%) had higher obesity prevalence than non-Hispanic whites (14.1%).
- Non-Hispanic Asians (11.0%) had lower obesity prevalence than non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics.
The U.S. population is grossly overweight, and we are raising children who are following in the footsteps of their mothers and fathers. They are heading toward becoming even more obese than their parents.
That should alarm everyone. People are eating and drinking way too much, and they are imposing the cost of their lack of disciple on everybody else in the form of higher taxes to pay their bills.
Interestingly, people who were born in 1985 when Koop addressed the U.S. overweight and obesity problem are 35-years-old today. They have joined the ranks of overweight and obese Americans and are contributing to our problem:
- The obesity rate in the U.S. is 40% now. It’s up 60% since 1985.
- Our “normal weight tables” are still inaccurate.
- The problem is getting worse.
That’s what happens when people who should know better ignore the truth and pretend that reality is irrelevant.
A Personal Story
My father was morbidly obese. He died in 2005 at age 80 following open-heart surgery to replace his failing aortic valve and to do bypasses to correct his coronary artery disease. He never recovered from surgery. The total medical costs associated with the final 60 days of his life exceeded $500,000.
My father literally ate himself to death. Although he lived to be almost 80, he was obese to morbidly obese for at least 40 years. For at least half of his life, my father suffered the consequences of his poor eating habits. He couldn’t do normal things. He would lose his balance and fall often, because he wasn’t strong enough to control his body weight. His joints were deteriorating, and he was in great pain. Even so, he would not stop overeating. From the time he woke up in the morning until the time he went to bed at night, he was doing one of two things: He was eating or thinking about eating. An outing for him was going on another “eating adventure”.
Aortic stenosis is a genetic heart disease. That’s what my father had, and he passed it on to me through his genes. In August 2016, I was diagnosed with aortic stenosis. In January 2019, I had open-heart surgery to replace my failing aortic valve. Before surgery, my thoracic surgeon met with me to go over the procedure. He had all of my vitals:
- My weight was in the athletic range.
- My muscles were in the athletic range.
- My coronary arteries are 85% clear. That’s in the athletic range.
I am emphasizing “athletic range”, because that’s what my thoracic surgeon did. He looked at my vitals and he looked at me and he said, “You are in great physical shape. You have a 90% chance of surviving this surgery.”
When my surgeon said that, I wanted to know what my father’s chances of surviving his surgery were. I told him about my father’s condition and asked him to tell me how likely it was that my father could have survived his surgery. The surgeon looked at me and shook his head. After a few seconds, he said, “His chances weren’t good. I would say less than 1%, probably much less than 1%.”
I Thank Yahweh Every Day
Nobody plans to get aortic stenosis or any other serious disease. They appear suddenly out of nowhere. When they appear, we are ready or we are not ready. If we are ready, we can deal with the diseases. If we are not ready, the diseases are likely to kill us.
I thank Yahweh that I saw the overweight and obesity problem for what it is more than 3 decades before I was diagnosed with aortic stenosis. In the mid-1980s, I made getting into shape and staying in shape a high priority. I had no idea that more than 3 decades later those decisions would save my life, but they did.
Before my surgery, someone told me, “Neil, Yahweh can get you through this.”
I looked at him and said, “He already did, more than 30 years ago. I’m ready for this surgery, because Yahweh told me more than 30 years ago to get my body in shape.”
A few weeks before surgery, Yahweh told me something else. He said, “Don’t be afraid to die.”
I understood what He meant. I wasn’t even a little scared of heart surgery. I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Waiting for 2 ½ years to get it done produced anxiety, not fear. The problem with aortic stenosis is that insurance companies make you wait until you are about to die before they will approve surgery. That’s ridiculous, and it’s the truth.
For me, the day of surgery was just another day. Yahweh had prepared me physically, mentally, and spiritually, and I was ready. My wife and daughters saw my confidence. I think it helped them get through my ordeal.
People who are not as close to me as my wife and daughters wanted to wring their hands and worry. I told them, “Whatever you do, don’t put my name on any prayer list. This is between Yahweh and me. We’ve got this thing under control.”
My brother is a preacher. He couldn’t resist telling me after surgery that lots of people were praying for me. I don’t mind it when people pray for me, but I want to be perfectly clear. My well-being wasn’t and isn’t dependent on anyone praying for me.
For me, open-heart surgery was a test of faith. More than 40 years ago, Yahweh told me that I would do something very specific for Him. I haven’t done it yet. If I had died during heart surgery, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Therefore, I knew that I would survive surgery and go on to complete my mission. I had faith that Yahweh would see to it, and He did.
If there were people in the bleachers cheering us on, great, but we were not dependent on them. It was Yahweh and me. We were on the field together. He did it, but I had to have faith that He would do it.
The Terrible Toos
There is no shortage of fad diets that people go to when they want to lose weight. New diets pop up all the time, and the latest fad diet is always the best diet ever to enter the mind of man. All the while, people keep getting fatter and fatter.
That tell us a lot about diets in general and fad diets in particular. Forget diets. They don’t work.
Losing weight is simple. It just takes disciple. People are overweight and obese for 4 reasons. I call them “The Terrible Toos”:
- They eat too much.
- They eat too often.
- They eat too late in the day.
- They exercise too little.
This is what I do. It works for me. It might work for you, too:
- I eat anything I want, but I don’t eat too much of anything. Serving sizes in the U.S. are way too large. I just eat less of what I enjoy eating.
- I don’t eat snacks. I do all of my eating when it’s time to eat.
- I eat 2 meals a day. That’s it. No exceptions. If my routine doesn’t jive with other people’s schedules, so be it. As Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
- I don’t eat late in the day. I can’t stress that enough. I eat my last meal of the day somewhere between 3:00 PM and 4:00 PM. If you doubt the significance of eating your last meal early in the day, do some research. It’s a fact. Eating late in the day is terrible.
- I exercise every day. I have a regimen that works for me, and I stay with it. After heart surgery, I had to give up my exercise regimen for about 10 weeks. The only thing I could do was walk, and walk I did. Walking is a big part of my exercise regimen anyway.
That’s what I do. It’s simple and easy. All I have to do is exercise some discipline. As I said, it might work for you.
Some will say, “I don’t have discipline.”
This is my response: “Well, you are S.O.L.”
I’m reminded of an exchange between Yahweh and Cain:
Now the man [Adam] had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of Yahweh.”
Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to Yahweh of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And Yahweh had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.
So, Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then Yahweh said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
Genesis 4: 1-8
Yahweh told Cain what he needed to do. He needed to master his feelings (exercise discipline) and follow Abel’s example. Instead, Cain killed Abel. At that point, Cain was S.O.L.
The Reality
If you eat yourself to death, you will have only yourself to blame.
If you have children and you teach them poor eating habits, you are helping them kill themselves. They don’t have any idea that you caused their problem. They can break the bad habits you teach them, but you are laying a burden on their shoulders that they shouldn’t have to bear.
Overeating isn’t a new thing. Yahweh refers to it as gluttony. He refers to drinking too much alcohol as drunkenness. He talks about gluttony and excess drinking the same way. So, if you are a self-righteous Christian and you enjoy judging others, be careful before you condemn someone for drinking too much if you eat too much.
“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7: 3)
To me, there is nothing quite so pathetic as an obese, self-righteous Christian condemning someone for drinking too much.
I’m reminded of something Winston Churchill said when Lady Astor told him that he was “disgustingly drunk”. Churchill looked at her and said, “My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”
Churchill is an interesting character. He hit the nail on the head.
I’m not trying to excuse drinking too much. I’m putting drinking too much into perspective. Eating too much and drinking too much are the same sin.
Now, take a look at these verses from Philippians. You may have missed seeing them before:
“Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of the Messiah, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.” (Philippians 3: 17-19)
If you have read this far, you can’t say, “I didn’t know.”
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
