Crushing our own future

Want to see a major reason why health-care costs are too high? Look in the mirror, America. Just make sure it’s wide enough to get the full picture.

Obesity rates continue to climb at alarming rates, according to report released Thursday, “F as

in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2011.” The annual accounting of the nation’s burgeoning waistlines is conducted by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The trend holds even here in Washington, where one might think that the abundance of recreational opportunities would keep us relatively fit. But no. The report ranks us as the 28th most obese state, up from 32nd 15 years ago. In that time, Washington’s rate of seriously overweight adults has ballooned by 90 percent. It’s now at a blood-pressure raising 26.4 percent.

And although our state ranking in childhood obesity (48th) looks better, studies suggest the number of overweight children also continues to climb. That’s more kids who will have to battle obesity as adults, along with costly health problems like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

This report re-emphasizes a point that can’t be made often enough: that individual behavior has an enormous impact on health-care costs. Obesity is a preventable condition, as are the chronic and expensive-to-treat diseases it causes. Most adults who fail to keep their own weight at a healthy level, and especially those who don’t model and enforce appropriate diet and exercise habits for their children, are willful and significant contributors to America’s health-care problems.

Public policies should aim to make healthier lifestyles easier. Investments in effective public health initiatives — such as Healthy Communities programs that have vanished in Snohomish County because of budget cuts — figure to pay for themselves many times over in lower health-care costs.

That’s why as debt-reduction talks continue between Congress and the White House, funding for effective prevention programs needs to be protected. Slashing relatively small investments that can help stem the bleeding of health-care dollars would be foolishly short-sighted.

Policies that make healthier foods more affordable and accessible are also important. Studies consistently show higher obesity rates at lower income levels. Government subsidies and other incentives should aim to make healthier choices easier, not to make highly processed, high-sugar, high-fat foods cheaper.

But public policies have little chance of success if fewer and fewer of us refuse to take responsibility for our own health. If current obesity trends continue, America’s health-care system will eventually collapse under Americans’ own weight.