Essay on "Obesity"

Essay 4 pages (1260 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Obesity is one of the most prevalent forms of malady in the European and American continents. The ranks of obese individuals are augmented each year to the extent that obesity is now very often referred to as pandemic in either first-world or undeveloped countries from across the world. The purpose of this paper is to observe, compare and contrast the health policies of the United Kingdom and the United States of America, with special focus on the measures allocated to preventing and decreasing the obesity rate among the countries' inhabitants.

Trends from the past 18 years in the United Kingdom seem to indicate a tremendous increase in the percentage of obese persons. In fact, reports show that 21% of adult women and 17% of adult men are obese, while 56% of the entire adult male population and 46% of the female sector are overweight (Banning, 2005). Moreover, weight issues expand to the younger population as well, since there is an accelerating tendency in childhood obesity, which affects 9.6% of girls and 6.5% of boys, with a narrowed scope of 70% occurrence limited to 3- to 4-year-old children, as was registered between years1989 and 1998 (Banning, 2005).

In addition, the financial consequences of obesity in Great Britain are significant. It has been estimated that £9.7 billion will be spent on obesity-related diseases by 2050 if the afore-mentioned trends do not change (Timmins, 2011). The healthcare costs of dealing with the repercussions associated with an overweight and obese population in the U.K. are monstrous, seeing as each year £9.5 million is spent on treating obesity and £12.5 million on treating its direct consequences, such as type 2 diabetes and various effects on the cardiovascular system, due to hypertension, high triglycerides and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (Banning, 2005). All in all, the combined expenses demand a portion of up to 1.5% out of the National Health Service available budget, and indirect costs represented by sickness absence from work, or premature death, result in approximately £2.1 million annual cost (Banning, 2005).

Compared to Great Britain, the United States health policy is focused on minimizing the medical and social costs inflicted by the presence of a high obesity rate across the country. In this sense, federal and state governments have applied certain tax policies, essentially meant to induce individuals into becoming more physically active and also adopt better eating behavior. This is done by favoring the purchase of healthy products through granting a tax subvention, taxing unhealthy products, and creating tax incentives for individuals to become more physically active (Efrat & Efrat, 2012).

Admittedly, studies suggest that adopting taxing measures on unhealthy foods and beverages is not necessarily synonymous with certain alteration of consumption patterns. Nonetheless, following the example of the significant decline in tobacco use, which is associated with an increase in taxes (Efrat & Efrat, 2012), the majority of policy supporters remain confident that appointing a large excise tax on unhealthy products would effect a significant modification of consumption patterns and so influence the nationwide overweight prospects. Additionally, such funds as have been obtained from these taxes could be directed towards supporting a set of effective obesity prevention programs and campaigns, conducive to further reduction in obesity levels in children and adults alike.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Britain acknowledges the value of fiscal policy actions as potentially capable of confronting diet-related disease in a successful manner, just as the British educational and informational approach is believed to have failed to address obesity effectively (Nicholls et al., 2011). Even though fiscal measures are being considered as part of a multi-factorial intervention, the general consensus is that it is too early to realize whether the fiscal policies already adopted by other nations such as Denmark, Romania, or the United States, are… READ MORE

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