Is obesity responsible for the increase in people with disabilities in the USA?

  • Share:
  • facebook
  • linkedin
  • twitter

ObesityIs obesity responsible for the increase in people with disabilities in the USA?

Obesity is a huge problem in the USA, as years of unhealthy eating habits are taking their toll.

A friend of mine is morbidly obese, has had two knee replacements and can barely walk in our home without a cane.   The amount of weight on this small frame has taken its toll and she is partially disabled due to her inability to walk.

Obesity has caused an epidemic of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems that require medications and a constant concern with blood pressure as well.

Recently, a magazine named quartz investigated this phenomenon and how it has affected peoples health, the quality of their lives and in many cases, placed them on disability.  Being morbidly obese is an expensive way to live, with medical costs, and the costs of care, society is paying the price for the obesity of others.

Check out this article

A CYCLE OF EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS
How obesity became the new face of disability in America

By Jill Rothenberg

On stairs carved into an old narrow gauge railway just outside of Colorado Springs, hikers and runners push themselves up 2,000 vertical feet in just under a mile. Here on the Manitou Incline, it”™s easy to see why Colorado is ranked America”™s leanest state.

But only forty miles to the south is Pueblo, a former steel mill town of 100,000, with an obesity rate that reached 30% in 2013-2014, according to the Pueblo City-County Health Department. That”™s around 9% more than the statewide average of 21.3%, but fairly close to the nationwide average, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

The parking lots in this once-thriving manufacturing city are full of cars with blue disabled placards hanging from their rearview mirrors. Here in the city”™s Wal-Marts and grocery stores, shoppers using mobility carts are a common sight, as are those breathing oxygen through tubes in their nose.

Read more