We are the 1%! (heart-health wise)

My wife and I have proudly marched in Occupy Salem events, chanting "We are the 99%!" But we're pleased to learn that we're also in the 1% -- the percentage of Americans who met all seven metrics of cardiovascular health.

Which are:

• Not smoking
• Physical activity (being active)
• Having blood pressure under control
• Maintaining healthy blood glucose levels
• Maintaining healthy blood cholesterol levels
• Maintaining a healthy body weight
• Following a healthy and balanced diet

I barely made it past the body weight criterion, finding that my six feet tall'ness and 182 pounds of weight'ness gave me a BMI (body mass index) of 24.7, just a bit under the 25 that qualified me for normal weight.

Otherwise, though, I'm clearly in the Healthy Zone on the other six criteria. And it really isn't all that difficult to do. 

Yet only 1.2% of Americans met all seven metrics during 2005-2010, compared to an also-measly, but somewhat better, 2% from 1988 to 1994.

Conclusion: Americans are in bad shape.

That's obvious from watching my fellow citizens gorge themselves on crappy food, and try to cram their fat butts into airplane seats that are plenty wide for normal bodies -- but not the abnormally obese American physique.

Health insurance plans and employers are catching on to how much medical care money goes to pay for conditions that could have been prevented if people had healthier lifestyles. Good news.

If people's insurance premiums were partly based on how many of the seven heart-healthy metrics insurees met, that'd be a monetary incentive to engage in healthier behaviors. 

Comments

[Willie R]

I wish you and Laurel the very best of health, Brian. May you both live into your 90's with your faculties and senses intact and with complete mobility.

More than that, I certainly hope that circumstances are such that your long lives will actually be worth living.

Life is not that great for everyone. I speculate that at least 4 billion of the 7 billion of us have absolutely nothing to look forward to except survival. And the vast majority of the remaining 3 billion who look forward to better times will have become disillusioned far in advance of their own demise.

As for me - I am ready to go. I am as cynical here as I am on the Churchless blog, but my best wishes are authentic.

[Willie R]

Oops! If comment editing were possible I would correct the spelling of your wife's name.(Laurel)

[tucson]

Blogger Brian wrote: "If people's insurance premiums were partly based on how many of the seven heart-healthy metrics insurees met, that'd be a monetary incentive to engage in healthier behaviors."

-- Incentives are a good idea, often. When my son was a beginning driver, the insurance company offered him $100 for each year that he remained ticket and accident free. This seemed to help a little, for awile.

When I applied for health insurance a few years back, I was turned down because of a high total cholesterol number. The company's standard was under 220 and mine was 225.

What they failed to consider was the composition of my cholesterol which had high HDL as well as low triglycerides which actually gave me a favorable HDL/LDL ratio and put me in a lower risk category than someone with a much lower total cholesterol number but with a less favorable composition profile. It is possible for a person to have a total cholesterol of say, 150, and be much worse off than a person with 225. But they would actually approve the person with the lower number and reject the person with the higher. Go figure.

I eventually got in with another company that had no such ignorant standard. Actually, they did, but not that one.

This is why I don't want government regulating all this because government is cumbersome and slow to adapt with heavy bureaucratic overhead and no bottom line to meet. Decisions and policies like the above are likely to be commonplace, difficult to change and there will be no recourse.

If a private company operates ineficiently, they go under. Bye bye. But if the government opperates inefficiently, they just raise taxes, create bonds, print money, spend away and pass the buck to the next generation while they go on their merry way of frustrating everyone.

[cholesterol drug]

You also have to remember that having too little cholesterol can disrupt important body processes, including the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids for fat metabolism. As mentioned before, cholesterol is important for your cognitive function. Best of luck in your health, maintain a healthy lifestyle and always live a healthy life. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/10/making-sense-of-your-cholesterol-numbers.aspx