By Lynn Haraldson-Bering
Dr. Andrew Weil was a guest on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show yesterday discussing his latest book, “Why Our Health Matters.” Although I’m somewhat of a Dr. Weil skeptic, I believe he’s spot on in his assessment of our current health care system, which he says isn’t “health” care at all, but disease treatment with no emphasis on prevention.
In his “Call To Action,” published recently online at the Huffington Post, he lists seven suggestions for overhauling our nation’s approach to health care. I was most drawn to this one:
“Create an Office of Health Promotion within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and fund it appropriately. We spend 40 times more on the health risks of terrorism than we do on the health risks of obesity, which kills about 400,000 people a year. There is too much emphasis on treating disease rather than on protecting health in the first place. We need to invest real dollars and ingenuity in educating people about nutrition, exercise and other healthy activities. It’s the single most effective way to defeat the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and conditions that lead to life-threatening diseases.”
When I was 300 pounds and deciding how to lose weight, gastric bypass crossed my mind for a few seconds. My insurance company would pay for it. The cost? About $20,000. I decided to join Weight Watchers online instead. My insurance company would NOT pay for it. The cost? $17 a month.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in mathematics to see those numbers don’t add up, and yet nearly five years later, my insurance company has done little to combat the growing obesity epidemic and still refuses to pay for my WW or gym membership, even though I saved them more than $20,000.
What has my insurance company done? Last year they developed a “wellness program” and threatened its members with higher premiums if they didn’t participate.
Members start by filling out an online health assessment. There are so many things wrong with this, namely that it relies on the honest SELF assessment of the member himself. No professional health care worker visits your house or follows up. It’s strictly online. If this was implemented when I was 300 pounds, I wouldn’t have truthfully answered many of the questions for two reasons: 1) I would have been embarrassed to put that information online not knowing who had access to it; and 2) I was lying to myself about how much I weighed and how little I exercised. If I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, I certainly couldn’t give directions out of the woods, now could I?
I joined their little “program” last summer, only because of the threat, and it’s turned out – as I suspected it would – to be a big waste of time. I’ve gotten little more than a flier twice a year in the mail with “tips” on “wellness.” I put these words in quotes because what my insurance company sends out is nothing that isn’t reported in mainstream media every day. “Eat more fruits and vegetables!” Duh. Even when I was obese I knew that was good advice. And what they call “wellness” isn’t my idea of wellness at all. I understand wellness as covering the entire body, not just what we eat or what our blood pressure is. Wellness is prevention AND innovative and alternative health care options such as acupuncture and massage, as well as exercise programs and hands-on nutritional counseling. Simply sticking a program online and saying, “Read this! Or we’ll raise your premium!” is NOT the right approach to disease (or obesity) prevention.
Nor is our current health care mentality of "take a pill/have surgery and you'll be fine" approach. However, how do we implement this kind of enormous change? It will take a national effort, but what concerns me is that the easy way out (fast medicine as well as fast food) is so ingrained in our culture and the lack of physical activity (i.e. no phy-ed or recess) is so standard in our schools that I don't know how such a change can occur. Throw in powerful pharmaceutical companies and the food industry and change seems even more a dream.
If you could offer advice to insurance companies or the National Institutes of Health if they were to create policy for obesity treatment and prevention, what would you tell them in regard to the following questions:
1. What kind of, if any, obesity treatment/education program would have enticed you to lose weight when you were overweight/obese?
2. What would you like to see implemented on a national level to encourage weight loss and healthier eating?
3. What kinds of support would you like to see offered to people who reach their goal weight and are wanting to maintain their weight?
Also, let us know if your insurance company has established innovative programs to support its members to get and stay physically fit. I hope you have better support than the members of my insurance company do.
Leave a comment or email us at refusetoregain@gmail.com.
