The High Cost of Being Overweight

photo credit: mandj98

“For the first time ever, over­weight peo­ple out­num­ber aver­age peo­ple in Amer­ica. Doesn’t that make over­weight the aver­age then? Last month you were fat, now you’re aver­age — hey, let’s get a pizza!” — Jay Leno

Have you ever thought about it? How much it costs to be over­weight, that is.

Accord­ing to this arti­cle on MSN — the cost is $487 bil­lion. See the arti­cle for the specifics on how they came up with this figure.

For here, we’ll just talk about what this means. It means that if you are in good health and not over­weight, you ben­e­fit from lower gas costs in your car, less mate­r­ial used in your clothes, less vis­its to the doc­tor, and increased pro­duc­tiv­ity — to name a few of the ben­e­fits. Quan­ti­fy­ing some of these can be dif­fi­cult, but the end point is that we do save money by being healthy.

On a short term out­look, it could be easy to dis­agree with this. For instance, it’s a lot cheaper to buy a loaf of cheap white bread, some candy, and a jar of Jif peanut but­ter that it would be to buy qual­ity whole wheat bread, nat­ural peanut but­ter, and some fresh broc­coli. Or going to McDon­alds and order­ing a Big Mac and fries is quicker (and some­time cheaper) than prepar­ing a meal at home.

But think about it, over time, these short term choices we make have a large impact on our lives. I went through this a few years ago. I drank reg­u­lar soda every­day, ate at fast food restau­rants regualarly, and didn’t spend the time or money to exer­cise. Slowly I went from being thin and in rea­son­ably good health, to hav­ing very poor health and being bor­der­line obese. Since that low point, I have worked hard to live a healthy lifestyle, includ­ing eat­ing right and exer­cis­ing reg­u­larly. Has it been worth it? Absolutely! It’s one of the best deci­sions I have ever made. It’s not always easy, and some­times I slip up a bit. But in the long haul, I have decided to make exer­cise and nutri­tion impor­tant ele­ments of my life.

So, whether your in great shape, or have some work to do — make a plan, set some goals, and then get out there and make it hap­pen! You’ll improve your life, and in the long term view, save your­self some money. But the money sav­ings are really just a side ben­e­fit, the real deal is you feel­ing great about your­self and improv­ing the qual­ity of your life!

Lance writes sto­ries from his heart, aim­ing to inspire and moti­vate, as you align more fully with YOUR true peak. When he’s not here, you can find him hang­ing out with his fam­ily, rid­ing a bike, or just gen­er­ally act­ing goofy.   Sign up for the Thoughts from the Tree­house newslet­ter and get addi­tional inspi­ra­tion in your email inbox!

Lance Ekum

View all posts by Lance Ekum