I fully intended to write a completely different money saving tip for today, but on my way into the office, I had a complete change of direction.
Taylor and I just chatted about my proposed topic. I usually don’t run topics by him beforehand, but wanted to with this one because it seems a bit more sensitive than most other topics.
I’ll also readily admit that this is not your “typical” savings tip. Today I want to talk about choosing a healthier (and with that, much cheaper) lifestyle.
As the health care debate rages on (a debate which I completely want to avoid here on this blog), health costs are high on everyone’s list of concerns. I’m concerned about it. Who isn’t? I suppose since my thoughts have been (almost forced) there with the incessant debate, I began thinking about our health and how it impacts our financial bottom line.
In doing a bit of research, I found a very interesting article over at the Wall Street Journal:
“Obese people spent 42% more than people of normal weight on medical costs in 2006, a difference of $1,429, the study found. Prescription drugs accounted for much of the increase.”
A difference of $1,400 in one year alone?
Wow.
And not to sound calloused or harsh, but we should all take a hard look at ourselves and ask us if we’re living a healthy lifestyle. Statistics tell us that 30% of us are obese, and another 30% of us are overweight. This leads to diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, etc.
While I don’t agree with how we determine obesity at the moment (I feel like the body mass index is flawed and overly-simplifies things), I think we can all take a good look at ourselves and see if there isn’t something we should be doing to make our bodies a bit healthier.
$1,400 per year! And with health costs only supposed to rise…what will that obesity-related number look like in another decade?
So…for this savings tip, I wanted to leave you with some very actionable ToDos that you may consider. I’m no fitness expert, so you can just chalk these up to a friendly reminder with a dose of common sense.
1) Order water at restaurants (avoid the calories, and save money to boot).
2) Park far away from the store entrance (you’ll always find a spot).
3) Bring your lunch to work. I don’t want to begin listing the calorie-dense, nutrient-less foods available at fast-food/quickie restaurants that are more expensive and are downright bad for you… just bring your lunch to work.
4) Here’s something I’ve been doing to conquer my 7:00 pm case of the I-feel-like-eating-dessert-right-now episodes: Drink twelves ounces of water. That usually fills me up enough to forget about my craving.
5) Find an accountability partner. Report to each other every Friday about how you did with your exercise, eating, etc. (I recommend Friday only to recommend a set day each week, not Friday in particular).
There you have it. Five very simple tips. #1 saves you money. #3 saves you money. #4 saves you money.
And on top of that, you’ll be healthier. According to everything I read in preparation for this, that’s going to save you a bundle now, and in the future.
(Photo: ebruli)
Since I’m a health educator, I agree with you on the surface of this argument. I think you perhaps didn’t go quite deep enough. Obesity is not quite the health risk that the media claims it to be. The literature backs this up, but is routinely ignored or misreported. I could go on a rant, but I’ll point you to http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com to see what I mean.
One of the primary reasons that health care costs for the obese tend to be higher is not entirely about their weight. It’s often caused by fat people avoiding seeking out medical care until one MUST seek it out, which means one is usually sicker. In our fat-phobic culture, doctors tend to attribute most every health issue to one’s weight and downplay or ignore other potential causes. It’s tiring to hear “you’re sick because you’re fat; lose weight and then come back to me”.
Anyway, let me stop off my soapbox and get back to my original point. There are many many other health behaviors which save money on health care and in other areas as well.
The simplest one? Wash your hands. Using basic hygiene like handwashing and avoiding sick people prevents the majority of colds and flu…yes, including H1N1. The CDC has fantastic information at http://www.cdc.gov/Features/HandWashing/ so I won’t go into that.
Avoiding the most preventable illnesses saves on the cost and time for doctor visits, purchase of medicines (Rx and OTC), lost time and productivity at work.school, and added bonus — reduces the likelihood you will infect anyone else and cause all these expenses for them. This is why you should stay home from work or school when you’re sick!!!!
Other behaviors? Quit/don’t start smoking. Avoid consuming alcohol to excess. Avoid illegal drugs or the non-medical use of prescription drugs. Get some activity in. Establish a regular sleep pattern. Practice safer sex to avoid disease and unplanned children. These are just a few things that help save money and help your overall physical and mental health.
We tend not to be terribly prevention-oriented in our society. The western medical model relies on a “wait until it’s broke, then we’ll fix it” mentality. But prevention improves our health and our finances, so it just makes sense. And cents!
Lisa,
Thanks so much for adding so much value to this tip! My only desire was to be able to see the study that attributed the 40% increase to obesity. I would have liked to have known exactly how they determined the cause, why, etc.
I also love your tip about hand washing :) I love practical, useful things.
Again, thanks for the great comment. Excellent.
Thanks, Jesse….and you’re most welcome. I’ll admit I just clicked over to read the WSJ article (I blathered on without reading it before! LOL), but one thing that stands out to me is they’re talking about the significant increase in obesity since 1998.
One of the big contributors to that increase was a late 90s governmental change in the definition of what BMIs were included in obese, overweight and normal weight. Essentially, they shifted the numbers lower, so overnight, the numbers of obese and overweight people jumped when they hadn’t gained a pound.
And you are right to be suspicous of BMI as an accurate measure since it can’t account for gender, age, bone structure, muscle vs. fat %age, etc. As a great illustration, Michael Jordan (by BMI) is considered obese. Huh?
And, perhaps most importantly, BMI doesn’t take into account the natural body shape and size diversity that exists in the world. Our weights and shapes are as varied and diverse as our hair and eye color, skin tone, height, shoe size, shape of fingernails and all the rest of the genetically predetermined attributes. Yet we still maintain this stubborn belief that we can force our bodies to fit into what a flawed chart says it “should” be.
Wow, I’m really ranting here. Guess it boils down to “don’t believe everything you read”. Thanks for giving me the platform :)
Thanks for the article Jesse! Those are some great tips for making little changes that can really affect our health and our bottom line.
An additional step I am taking is seeing a nutritionist. My health care (aka “sick care”) doesn’t cover preventative measures (what the ?!?!?!?) like this, so it is all out of pocket for me, but I figure $75 for my initial consult plus $200 for a package of 5 30-minute meetings is well worth it. For $275, I can get the guidance and accountability to get my life turned around the right way and make a complete lifestyle change.
I have been on this plan for 3 weeks and I have significantly reduced the volume of food I am consuming, but increasing the quality of food that I buy. There is cost savings in consuming realistic portions, but real, good, whole foods can many times cost more than the junk food that is so cheap and available (grapes and fish instead of ramen and boxed mac and cheese). Here, as with the nutritionist, I consider the extra money I am spending on food to be well worth it. An extra $50 to $100 per month spend on food is way better than $1,400 per month on medications!!!
I have read the Junk Food Science blog and I have mixed feelings about it. There isn’t an obesity epidemic and it’s OK to be chunky according to JFS, but we should all get exercise and eat low-fat diets. You know, I’m not sure there wasn’t a good reason to change the standards of the BMI tables. I do know they changed the diagnostic criteria for type 2 diabetes at some point, too, and naysayers point to this as the real “cause” of the diabetes epidemic. But perhaps there was good reason for that change, too; in fact I’d be willing to bet money I don’t have on it. The earlier the underlying metabolic defect that later leads to diabetes can be identified, the better the outcome for the patient if compliant with their care. Perhaps the earlier standards didn’t allow for early enough lifestyle intervention. I’m not an endocrinologist so I couldn’t say.
I do know people get cause and effect mixed up when it comes to obesity and chronic disease. There is very good research pointing to the possibility of diabetes and heart disease arising out of the same metabolic/endocrine health issues; if you have heart disease you’re more likely to have a disordered glucose metabolism, and if you’re diabetic you’re more likely to have heart disease. For some reason, most mainstream practitioners seem to ignore this fact and treat heart disease as a disease of dietary fat consumption and diabetes as an unhappy genetic accident.
There’s all kinds of bad information circulating out there, right down to the notion that lowering cholesterol prevents heart disease. President Eisenhower could tell you differently, if he were alive today. He was having heart attacks while his cholesterol was *low.* Triglycerides are a more important risk factor but frequently ignored; if the patient succeeds in lowering them to a healthy level he then risks being prescribed statins. Reason: low triglycerides skew the equation used to determine a patient’s LDL count, which is not usually done directly because the lab work’s too expensive. (This is very likely what was behind the increase in LDL in some Atkins diet followers.) Then there’s the idea that exercise causes weight loss or prevents weight gain. In my experience it only works if I’m also impoverished with limited access to food, and I still don’t get down to what would be my “normal” weight. Science is catching up on that one too; even TIME ran an article about it recently.
Unfortunately much of the scientific research community is about ego rather than facts. Medical practitioners are all too often under-educated and over-dogmatic, and I include the JFS author in that reckoning. When I can lose weight on a 2000-calorie diet by cutting grains, starches, and sugars out and ramping up my fat intake, and I feel better, and I sleep better, something’s not kosher in the land of Denmark. And I’m by far not the only one.
If you like dense scientific writing you should read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. If you need something lighter he’s got several articles online as well, mostly at the New York Times.
The only way we’re going to save money on health treatments is by injecting real science into medicine. You’d be amazed how far the sugar-insulin connection goes when it comes to chronic disease. I get mad every time I see some advocacy group preaching about finding a cure for cancer when we can prevent most of them by eating right in the first place. Quit trying to find new drugs, people… the answer’s in your pantry.
Hear, hear! Clear your pantry of sugar laden “food” and bring on the veggies and good fats. I’ve been eating “clean” for over three months, last 22 pounds and now I no longer need cholesterol, acid reflux and allergy meds! I’m also reducing my chances of getting heart disease, diabetes, etc. Jessie’s right on……take care of your health and save dollars. I now have the energy to start my vegetable garden, which might save a few more dollars.
I want to suggest walking if you are able and can make time for it. I am retired so it is easy for me. Try to find an interesting place to walk. I have a nature center near me with 8 woodland trails which range from .3 miles to 3 miles in length – all well groomed with only slight rises now and then. I try to walk at least three times a week for a total of 10 miles. I have been doing this for just under a year now and have lost about 25 pounds and feel so much better. Seeing lots of wildlife is a great bonus and walking through the tranquil forest is very relaxing – no tranquilizers required and I sleep very well at night.
I think the debate leads to the issue of a healthy lifestyle. If you lead a health lifestyle ie. healthy diet, do regular exercise etc, these are all the factors which will contribute to reducing obesity in the population. It’s also a time versus money issue. Due to the stressful lifestyles that people lead these days, choices of convenience will sometimes outweigh an option that consumes more time eg. people find it easy to buy a pre-packaged meal over spending time in the kitchen to cook a healthy meal.
Debt and fat are so similar… they are both often times the result of poor planning and a lack of discipline and maturity.
I am on my way to ridding myself of both!! Sometimes it’s discouraging, but it’s so great that every minute of every day you get a new chance to make the right decision.