Assessment
In the US healthcare is very expensive. One of the main reasons is chronic diseases like stroke, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. 84% of healthcare expenses are because of chronic diseases. Lot of things are tried to prevent these diseases, but some disparities will always be there like access to healthcare, insurance problems, etc. the healthcare industry has seen lot of ups and down, with the policies that were working to some extent being considered to be taken out. New policies are yet to come. One of the leading chronic diseases in the US is obesity. Obesity is a disease that can be prevented from an early age. Local and federal health departments need to come together to tackle this problem as soon as possible (Gebbie & Turnock, 2006).
Childhood Obesity
· Obesity is a big problem in the US. 52% children are obese or overweight. 70% of these children grow into obese adults.
· High body mass index of 25 or more causes obesity. Obesity is the result of bad diet habits, physical inactivity, and also genetics. 13% of all children at the school going age are obese in the US (Liu & Manson, 2001).
· Obesity causes many diseases. Diabetes, fatty liver disease, asthma, cancer, heart disease, and stroke can be caused by obesity. At an older age it is harder to control weight and BMI becomes high. This is because metabolism slows down with age, and obesity is a metabolic syndrome/
· Poor diets and physical inactivity is the main cause of obesity in children (Guh et al., 2009).
· Death rate because of obesity is 14% in the US for men and 20% for men (Calle et al., 2003).
· Cost of obesity with other diseases in US healthcare is $46 billion, and only obesity is $23 billion. Total cost, indirect and direct combined, is $69 billion (Wolf & Colditz, 1994).
Policy
The public schools in the US have breakfast and lunch offered to their students. The food served is according to USDA standards set in a federal nutrition standard. There are also strict rules on what can be offered in school vending machines. Along with this, the proposal is to make physical activity compulsory at school for children of grades 1 to 12. These classes should be guided by professionals and children should be in these classes for 1 hour daily.
Cost
· There are 13,506 public school districts in the US. The total number of schools could not be found. Considering there are 10 schools in each school district on average, there are 135,060 public schools in the US
· Average salary of physical education teacher in the US is 50,000. Total cost per year to have one teacher in each school is (135,060 x 50,000 =) $6.7 billion per year.
· Right now the cost of healthcare for obese people is $69 billion. With this policy USA can save (69 – 6.7 =) $62.3 billion dollars a year in healthcare costs.
Interest Group
· For - Society of Health and Physical Activity Educators (SHPAE): This group will like this policy because this is their career. A lot of these educators will be employed and that will help to reduce the childhood obesity problem.
· Against - Public School Districts: This policy will cost the school district some money. So the school districts will not want to have this policy in their schools.
Assurance
· 70% of schools make physical education compulsory for all students in the next one year.
· Childhood obesity rate will decrease by 50% in the next 3 years.
References
Calle, E. E., Rodriguez, C., Walker-Thurmond, K., & Thun, M. J. (2003). Overweight, obesity, and mortality from cancer in a prospectively studied cohort of US adults. New England Journal of Medicine, 348(17), 1625-1638.
Gebbie, K.M. & Turnock B.J. (2006). The public health workforce, 2006: new challenges. HealthAffairs 25(4). 923–933.
Guh, D. P., Zhang, W., Bansback, N., Amarsi, Z., Birmingham, C. L., & Anis, A. H. (2009). The incidence of co-morbidities related to obesity and overweight: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC public health, 9(1), 1.
Liu, S., & Manson, J. E. (2001). Dietary carbohydrates, physical inactivity, obesity, and the ‘metabolic syndrome’as predictors of coronary heart disease. Current opinion in lipidology, 12(4), 395-404.
Wolf, A. M., & Colditz, G. A. (1994). The cost of obesity.Pharmacoeconomics, 5(1), 34-37.