Big Food vs. Big Insurance

Not sure if this article has been mentioned in the past (as, you know, "Today in the New York Times..." seems to be something we say in every class), but the NYT published this on September 9, 2009 about how all this talk about health care reform has not touched on the fundamental question of food reform in the U.S.

In this article, the authors bring up that fact that "we’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet.One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care."

A significant amount of healthcare money is being spent on chronic conditions. So, it seems that it would make sense that saving costs on health care expenditures starts more upstream than treating people after they develop diabetes. But whether because tackling the entire food industry is too daunting or whether it's just not a priority to the current Administration, I feel that this factor on the American population's health can not be ignored.

There has been some discussion on the soda tax, but other methods of improving the American diet include diversifying the regional food economy and making school lunches healthier and from regional growers instead of far-away food manufacturers.

Anyway, I'm going to conclude with (1) the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

and (2) a quote from a very frustrated Dr. Cox (to an overweight CHD patient) from the NBC show "Scrubs" which pertains to food and health. "Guess what, you are what you eat, and clearly you've gone out and eaten a big fat man."