Both obesity and smoking can cause multiple diseases, ranging from cancer, emphysema, arthritis, coronary artery disease, to mouth disease and hypertension, any of which can significantly decrease activities of daily living, as well as, life expectancy. Both of these disease factors are preventable. Preventive measures should include those with an individual focus as well as community-wide measures. Focusing on community education and prevention efforts will help to alleviate the health concerns arising from these issues.
Although tobacco comes in many forms, cigarettes will be our primary focus. Cigarettes contain many toxic carcinogens. Tobacco, arsenic, and ammonia are among the 7,000 substances found in cigarettes known to cause many problems within the human body (CDC, 2011). Smoking causes more than, 480,000 deaths a year in the United States (CDC, 2014), and not only to smokers themselves but also among those who have secondary and tertiary contact.
Community education programs and smoking cessation classes can help to eliminate smoking. These programs can help to teach the community how to deal with this addiction and can also help families deal with this deadly disease.
According to Masters, Reither, Powers, ClaireYang, Burger, and Link (2013), “Among health professionals there is widespread agreement that high rates of obesity present serious public health challenges in the United States.” Obesity occurs in all ethnicities, genders, and age groups. Obesity is decreasing the health of our nation by causing problems with blood pressure, cholesterol, and respiratory problems. The cost of obesity is placing a burden on our health system.
Ward-Smith (2010) states, “Obesity has been associated with a 36% increase in the health care spending and treating the obese patient can be medically challenging.” It is placing a burden on an already weakened health system. According to Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen and Dietz (2009) there was an increase of approximately $40 billion on medical spending for obese patients in 2006 and medical cost increased by $147 billion in 2007.
Community education programs offer ways to teach Americans how to control their weight through exercise and healthy eating, as well as by learning how to read food labels. Such programs can also help children and youth to develop healthy eating habits while young that will last them throughout their lives. The combined effect of these programs can help to ensure a healthy generation in the future, and can reduce the strain on the United States’ medical resources and economy.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). Chemical in Tobacco Smoke. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2010/consumer_booklet/chemicals_smoke/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Health Effects of Cigarettes Smoking. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/index.htm
Ginkelstein, E.A., Trogdon, J.G., Cohen, J.W., & Dietz, W. (2009). Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: payer-and services-specific estimates. Health Affairs, 28(5) w822-w831. Retrieved from content.healthaffairs.org/content/28/5/w822.full.pdf+html
Masters, R. K., Reither, E. N., Powers, D. A., Claire Yang, Y.Y., Burger, A.E., & Link, B.G. (2013). The impact of obesity on US mortality levels: The importance of age and cohort factors in population estimates. American Journal Of Public Health, 103(10), 1895-1901. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org.p.atsu.edu/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301379
Ward-Smith, P. (2010). Obesity - - America’s health crisis. Urologic Nursing, 30(4), 242-245.
No comments:
Post a Comment