The headline "Majority US Healthcare Costs Are Caused by Bad Eating Habits" is not the headline of the article, nor is this supposed fact stated anywhere in the article.
I very much doubt it's true, and I don't think it's well-defined enough to even be false.
(...) the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.
This is a key argument in the article and the headline seems like a reasonable paraphrase of that.
> ... the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries ....
Is actually explained by the fact that we pay our doctors twice as much as they do.
We have the same number of doctors per person as they do. And unless our doctors are way more efficient, that means we get sick at about the same rate.
But we spend twice as much, because we pay twice as much. Not because we get sick twice as much.
Haven't you heard? The new wisdom is that exercise makes you even fatter. Well, I exaggerate, but I'm referring to a recent Time story saying 'exercise won't make you thin' (the idea being that you still need to eat less or you'll just get hungrier and never lose weight).
You are quite right, but 'pin the tail on the donkey' seems to sell better :-/
The somewhat confusing thing is that people focus so much on "losing weight". Even if exercise makes you hungrier, it's been shown quite conclusively to make you healthier.
If you really want to lose weight without regard to any other factors then take up smoking as it reduces your appetite. Or just cut off your legs. Certainly don't build up any muscle mass as that will only make you heavier.
Also, lack of exercise is correlated with weight gain in larger population and consequent lack of health.
People confuse this the statement that later exercise make up for a person's lack of exercise at a given period. This might or might not be true but it doesn't follow from the first statement. Lack of exercise over longer periods might screw people in ways that we have no idea how to fix.
Yea, I couldn't think of a better way to describe this article. Surely I think it's an improvement over "Big Food vs. Big Insurance" which doesn't give you any idea of what the article is really about. Do you have a better suggestion?
I very much doubt it's true, and I don't think it's well-defined enough to even be false.