Obesity and Smoking a Double Whammy

According to new research from the American Legacy Foundation as many as nine million adults in the United States are affected by both obesity and smoking, two of the nation's top public health epidemics. Indeed, these problems face all Western nations.

The research also suggests that though this figure might appear low compared to the millions of Americans affected by smoking and obesity independently, smoking and obesity in combination greatly impact America's most disadvantaged populations i.e. those who are the least educated and those in the lowest income bracket.

The research shows that more than 2.3 million Americans with income levels of less than $20,000 both smoke and are obese. It is widely acknowledged that smoking and obesity are two of the major causes of death and illness in the Unites States, but until now the overlap between the two conditions has never been measured.

The American Legacy Foundation examined data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey.The foundation which focuses on helping smokers who want to quit and preventing youth from starting to smoke wanted to estimate the number of adults in the U.S. who both smoke and are obese.

According to the report 81 million Americans were smokers, obese, or both in 2000, and an estimated nine million Americans were obese and smoked.

The two conditions, independently, are particularly high among people from lower socio-economic levels and it is of concern that those who are affected by both smoking and obesity, also come from disadvantaged populations, those with lower income (2.3 million) as well as African Americans (1.6 million).

According to recent figures over 400,000 Americans die each year from tobacco- related illness, including cancers, heart disease and stroke; overweight and obese individuals are at increased risk for many of those same diseases and health conditions.

The American Legacy Foundation says these factors pose a public health problem and demonstrate the dire need for resources, from quit smoking clinics, to consumer call lines, to effective education campaigns, to be made available for anyone who wants to quit smoking.

The report is available online at http://bmj.bmjjournals.com and will be published in the British Medical Journal in it's June edition.

Smoking and obesity are both killers. They each cause considerable morbidity and mortality. But before we make these labels out to be monsters let's remember this: they are both self-inflicted harms. They represent repeated choices and behavioral patterns.

Yes, there is a need for better health education, particularly amongst the less educated. However, I regularly observe plenty of quite sufficiently educated people who smoke and who are obese or at least overweight. The risks to their health are extremely high but the reality is they must accept responsibility for the state they are in and the consequences that will inexorably follow.

The truth is such people often are quite comfortable with the suggestion that they have some sort of disease. Increasingly people are justifying obesity by calling it a disease, as if it is something one passively catches rather than a condition one must actively work at developing. Smokers too, like to be let off or excuse themselves for their behavior by claims they are "addicted," as if this means they can't help smoking.

But this is nonsense. Such significant self-inflicted harm should perhaps be called what it is. If it is any type of disease, it is mental illness.

If you are a smoker I have one word for you: stop. If you are obese or overweight then take action to reduce your weight and improve your health. The method for losing weight is astonishingly easy and very inexpensive and does not require enriching the largely fraudulant multi-billion dollar "weight loss" industry. What you do need however, is motivation. If you don't have that then perhaps you do genuinely need to seek psychological help.

Weightloss is addressed almost as an aside in my soon-to-be-released book. Losing weight simply isn't the near impossibility that people have been mislead into believing it to be. The so-called weightloss industry has a vested interest in people continuing or repeatedly needing their services and products and that is clearly how things seem to work out. But if you are genuinely motivated to lose weight and significantly improve your health and wellbeing, I can certainly show you how. If you lack the motivation and willingness to accept responsibility I can still show you, but it would be a waste of time wouldn't it. It's your call.