10 Day Slim Down Challenge

More than 65% of Americans are overweight, 70 million people, or 25% of the population are considered obese or severely obese. The obesity crisis in America reaches far beyond the 77 million baby boomers and now envelops the teen and adolescent population in ever increasing numbers.

Metabolic Syndrome X, an accumulation of large amounts of abdominal body fat, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and cholesterol, further invites what can become a chronic, costly, life long and life shortening abyss of medical problems.

People with sleep apnea and respiratory problems find their conditions more exasperating because of being overweight. Gall bladder disease has a direct correlation to weight problems. Breast cancer and colon cancer are more intense in the overweight patient. Joint, disk and cartilage degeneration become further agitated by excess weight.

From 1990 to 2002, little more than a decade, the prevalence of diabetes in America's adult population almost doubled, from 4.9% to 8.7%. More than 20 million Americans are now afflicted with diabetes, 90 percent of them with Type 2, or what was formally known as adult onset diabetes.

It is estimated that more than one third of Americans with Type 2 diabetes remain unaware of their affliction until it causes a medical crisis. No longer just a baby boomers nemesis, among the reasons for the re-designation as Type 2 is its rampant spread to the younger population. Including both children and adults, in the USA well over 40 million people have higher than normal blood sugar levels, which is a typical precursor to the onset of full blown diabetes.

Diabetes ranks first in direct healthcare costs, exhausting over 15% of every healthcare dollar. Diabetes has a direct consequential link to other costly, crippling and frequently fatal diseases that often ensue, blindness, amputation, renal failure, heart disease and stroke.

Diabesity and its related health complications has been viewed as nearing pandemic proportions. Diabesity has become the single largest link to chronic diseases, which comprise 75% of the nation's healthcare costs.

The entrenchment of diabesity in America is nurtured by rising healthcare costs and falling medical coverage, denying preventive care, diagnosis and treatment to many who are most at risk. Like many of our social issues, diabesity is moving into its second and third generation of the population.

The fast food industry and its marketing environment lures not only adults, but children to eat the wrong foods, in increasing frequency and volume. School cafeterias are little different than a trip to the convenience store, offering up poorer nutritional choices with each succeeding year. Sodas and carbonated beverages, junk snacks and high fat foods lead the menu. It's cheaper to buy French fries than an apple. The failure of schools and the community to set a nutritional example and a decline in required physical activity is front and center in childhood obesity.

Medicare will soon be approaching just one active worker for every two retirees. Legacy costs in industries such as steel, airlines and automobiles have seen pension and medical benefits slashed, eliminated or assumed by federal programs. An American made car can have $1,800 in healthcare costs built into its sticker price.

Like so many sports stadiums, gyms and auditoriums, will our hospitals soon bear the names of corporate sponsors, the very companies that market and sell us with a snappy song and a smiling face?