Paying For Health: It’s Your Choice.

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I’ve written before about the cost and consequences of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Most of the time though I talk about these consequences in personal terms of disease, long term degenerative illnesses, shortened life expectancy and decreased quality of life.

However, based on the latest jaw dropping study from Trust for America’s Health (www.healthyamericans.org), entitled “F as in Fat: How obesity policies are failing in America”, the message from me and other fitness advocates continues to fall on deaf ears in this country.

Well now there is another consequence to this exploding health crisis that may finally get the attention of otherwise well intentioned, hard working Americans.  For millions of these people, decades of neglecting their health is now beginning to present them with an agonizing choice; paying for food or medicine. [more]

A recent article in USA Today reported that in a survey of 1,531 adults conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, 23% of the group said that medical costs are now their largest monthly bill - after mortgage or rent.

That’s scary folks!  But what struck me as much as that fact was the picture that accompanied the article; a husband and wife that typified this new class of afflicted Americans.  The woman was only 51 years old and morbidly obese.  Her disease?  Of course…Diabetes.  Although the USA Today article didn’t specify, you can make a very safe bet that it was Type II diabetes, a primarily self inflicted devastating disease usually brought on by obesity.

As her condition has worsened, her monthly health insurance premium has increased from $95 per month to $600 per month, a price that she can no longer afford to pay.  As she said in the article, “I’ve been going without some of my medicine.  When it comes down to paying the bills, you got to have electricity and water.” 

According to Eugene Barrett, former president of the American Diabetes Association, “It (diabetes) is generally thought to triple the cost of average annual medical bills.”  In the case of many Type II diabetics like this poor woman, she made the unconscious decision through her choice of lifestyle, to needlessly pay that price.

Her husband was only 57 but looked twenty years older.  I couldn’t help thinking that he was only four years older then me chronologically yet looked so old and frail, while I test out at about a physiological age of 36.  So from one perspective, I’m literally half his physiological age. 

The article said he was on disability from a military injury and had pain in his back and knees.  So we don’t know exactly the extent of his physical limitations but does anyone doubt that if these two had learned how to live and faithfully follow the principles of a health and fitness lifestyle, they would not be on the front page of USA Today?

It’s your life.  How you choose to live it will to a large extent determine your destiny. Medical costs today are spiraling out of control and much of it is beyond our ability to control. But self inflicted lifestyle illnesses like Type II diabetes and cardio vascular disease are to a large degree totally within our capability to avoid. While it’s true that living a health and fitness lifestyle is no guarantee that you’ll be spared from these killers, it sure does put the odds long in your favor.

Why is it so hard to get the message across to the average American?  What’s it going to take to wake this country up? With every ‘A’ Diet Score that you achieve with our PFA software, you’ve increased your odds just a bit.  With every cardio and weight training session you log during your physique transformation program, you’ve increased your odds just a bit.  And with every pound and percent body fat that you drop in Fat Burning, you’ve increased your health odds just a bit more.  It all adds up over time.

But whether it’s our program or some other fitness expert trying to help, we all face the same problem:  YOU!  The sad truth is that if you don’t have a burning desire to better yourself, physically or otherwise, nothing we can do for you will make any difference.

Our program and fitness process can indeed put the long term health odds in your favor.  I may be a little biased because I think the PFA does a superb job of giving you:

1) The education you need to truly understand the process of getting and staying fit.
2) The structure you need to successfully follow a program on a day to day basis.
3) The accountability that is necessary to hold your feet to the fire and achieve your fitness goals.

I look at our $7.97 monthly fee as the cheapest health insurance premium you’ll ever pay for decades of health and vitality.

But the choice is ultimately yours.  You can pay the piper now by eating right, exercising regularly and reaping the health dividends for many years to come.  Or you can borrow against your health today and pay later with money you worked a lifetime to save. 

I think the saddest thing of all is watching someone in his or her golden years merely existing…instead of living.  They short change themselves, their spouse, their families, their children, their communities. 

Choose to live, not just exist.  Get up off your butt and pay the price.  Do something about your health today before you wake up one day and find yourself on the cover of USA Today. 

I know that sounds pretty melodramatic to you… but not to Kathy and J.C. Anderson of Brownsville, Kentucky.  I’m sure this was not how they imagined their fifteen minutes of fame. 

Ric

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