Obesity is a choice.

Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- New research shows medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for an obese person than for someone who's normal weight.

Overall obesity-related health spending reaches $147 billion, double what it was nearly a decade ago, says the study published Monday by the journal Health Affairs.

Obesity-related conditions now account for 9.1% of all medical spending, up from 6.5%in 1998, the study concluded.

Health economists have long warned that obesity is a driving force behind the rise in health spending. For example, diabetes costs the nation $190 billion a year to treat, and excess weight is the single biggest risk factor for developing diabetes. Moreover, obese diabetics are the hardest to treat, with higher rates of foot ulcers and amputations, among other things.

The new study's look at per-capita spending may offer a shock to the wallets of people who haven't yet heeded straight health warnings.

"Health care costs are dramatically higher for people who are obese and it doesn't have to be that way," said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, who wasn't involved in the new research.

"We have ways of changing behavior and changing those health outcomes so that we don't have to deal with the medical consequences of obesity," added Mr. Levi, who advocates community-based programs that promote physical activity and better nutrition.

Really? Nutrition? Exercise? This is breaking news! If only we had known that dieting and exercise would ameliorate the growing burden obesity puts on our health system and our society. This is just something for which I have absolutely zero tolerance. If you've got a condition that makes losing weight difficult or impossible, it's one thing, but those conditions can't afflict every obese person in America. Simple tasks like walking around Wal-Mart instead of putting your fat ass in a motorized cart are a start to getting healthier. I have little tolerance for individuals that insist on not helping themselves. Losing weight is very very simple. People can order thousands of dollars in exercise equipment, which they won't use, take countless weight loss pills, which are terrible for your heart, or experiment with scores of "fad" diets, that leave you spending countless hours on the porcelain, but of all the things, the simple secret to staying healthy and thin is burning more calories than you consume. That simple equation can keep me from having to pay for your laziness and lack of physical motivation. Half your portions and double your exercise. Skip dessert. Diet Cokes and Snickers don't cancel one another out. Why is this epidemic literally and figuratively crippling America? Why can't the most advanced society in the world demand a healthier lifestyle? Why can't one of the most consumer driven societies in the world abandon or at least demand more from fast food chains? Why have caloric excesses become the norm for young children across the country at every meal? America has fallen victim to a Government that preys on the weak and apathetic. Sadly enough, America has willingly accepted that role. America has lost the drive to achieve. Conversely, those with that drive and focus for financial successes are punished into apathy. We have forgotten the honor, integrity, and freedom that accompany personal responsibility. We are becoming a majority of dependent, careless, underachievers, willing to dance at the strings of a puppeteering BIG GOVERNMENT as long as it promises a stipend or a useless and pointless government employment position that will only keep you down and pining for more. Obesity is completely analogous to this apathy. If you can't muster the dignity and self respect to care for your own or your child's health, why would getting a job or being a productive citizen be on the forefront of your psyche. Handing over your desire to succeed to an asphyxiating government has become the answer for Americans. This financial burden of obesity is just the tip of the iceberg. In every facet of Government, the private sector does it cheaper, more efficiently, and more effectively. Health care will be no different. Obesity percentage is among the highest in the VA health care system. Our patriotic veterans are being given a grave disservice. After dedicating their lives to our freedoms while sacrificing life and limb, they are left to battle for inadequate care in a system that betrays every day. For those that don't know, a VA hospital's M.O. is to cut off your nose to spite your face. In every single state, in every single VA hospital, care is backed up, expensive, ineffective, and apathetic. The inadequacy of care is incomprehensible when compared to care in the free market system. Are there problems with our current system? Of course, but watching a veteran die of metastatic melanoma simply because the VA can't get him to see a Dermatologist, isn't one of them. Government bureaucracy is completely to blame for these shortcomings. With regret to sounding hyperbolic, this situation is grave. There is no turning back. If health care reform passes, these excessive health care costs further burdened by obesity and apathy, will send this country sliding down a slippery ineluctable slope to a total collapse.