July 30, 2009 10:03 AM
Obesity costs everyone - part 2
While I am not a fan of the Nanny State, I really do feel our tolerance of obesity is putting people at risk and costing us all billions:
Take this story from today'sOmaha World-Herald and multiply it by thousands and thousands of local community expenditures:
Midlands ambulance crews strain to help obese patients By Michael O'ConnorFour-hundred-, 600- and even 800-pound patients are presenting ambulance crews with some big challenges.
As obesity rates rise, paramedics in Nebraska and Iowa are faced with carrying more obese patients. In turn, paramedics find creative ways to move them, and some fire departments are looking to borrow or buy specialized equipment.
Lincoln Fire & Rescue, for example, is considering putting a construction crane and a forklift on call for patients who are too big to get out a door or down steps. Firefighters had to use a tarp to haul an 800-pound patient a few years ago.
It's another example of how obesity can strain the health care system, whether that's hospitals or ambulance crews. The Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha in recent years has purchased heavy-duty beds and wheelchairs for obese patients.
Read entire article at Omaha World-Herald.
See also:
Obesity costs everyone - part 1
I'm going to do a little more research on this and will share what I find.
If you are headed to the point where you would pose a problem being lifted into an ambulance - or if you have a family member who would - it's time for a wake-up call. Take responsibility for yourself and your family. Get off the drugs dealing with symptoms of obesity. Lose weight! Get healthy! Read my journey of losing 80 pounds here - just scroll to the bottom and read forward.
Posted in Diet, Health | Permalink
Comments
My younger sister became a widow this year at 38, and her 2 boys fatherless, when her husband died at age 43. He weighed over 600 pounds and had not been out of bed for nearly a year, when he came home from the hospital after being treated for bed sores that nearly killed him. My sister struggled to take care of him alone the past two years, because he wouldn't let anyone else help. He needed to be in a nursing home, but none would take him because of the extra expense of bariatric equipment that would not be covered by medicare.
I know the man loved her - the way they looked at each other would send chills down your spine - but I couldn't believe he was so selfish. She spent months getting no more than two hours of sleep at a time getting up to help him after his catheter came out and he refused to go back to the hospital to get it put back in. He wouldn't let anyone else - not even his father - help him with that, so she could hardly leave the house at all. But I also know he couldn't have stayed that big and stayed bedridden for two years without her help.
There was a point 4 or 5 years ago when it would have been possible for him to be helped. But at some point it starts spiraling out of control as exercise becomes more and more difficult and insulin resistance and a slowing metabolism work against weight loss.
In the 4 months since his passing, my sister has come alive again. She is walking several miles a day and losing weight, and enjoying taking her boys fishing and being able to spend time with family again. She is finally able to make progress on getting her chronic back pain under control.
Normal sized people are considered skinny now. I can look through my grade school yearbook and not find one person as large as the "average" size at my son's school. I remember as a child my mother being one of the fattest people around. I am now the same BMI that she was on her last driver's license (about the same age I am now), and I have trouble getting people to believe I am obese, and I'm never the fattest person in a room, except at home. And I'm the "thinnest" of my 5 siblings.
I'm not sure I have a point in all this, just maybe to say I can see both sides of the issue, and have seen the pain up close and personal.
Posted by: withheld | July 30, 2009 11:54 AM
