Annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for a woman, $2,646 for a man

Awesome, not only is obesity tied to a host of nasty medical conditions and will kill you, it costs you a ton each year until it does....

Cost of obesity? Over $4,000 if you're a woman

WASHINGTON — Obesity puts a drag on the wallet as well as health, especially for women.

Doctors have long known that medical bills are higher for the obese, but that is only a portion of the real-life costs.

George Washington University researchers added in things like employee sick days, lost productivity, even the need for extra gasoline — and found the annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man.

That is far more than the cost of being merely overweight — $524 for women and $432 for men, concluded the report being released Tuesday, which analyzed previously published studies to come up with a total.

Why the difference between the sexes? Studies suggest larger women earn less than skinnier women, while wages don't differ when men pack on the pounds. That was a big surprise, said study co-author and health policy professor Christine Ferguson.

Researchers had expected everybody's wages to suffer with obesity, but "this indicates you're not that disadvantaged as a guy, from a wage perspective," said Ferguson, who plans to study why.

Then consider that obesity is linked to earlier death. While that is not something people usually consider a pocketbook issue, the report did average in the economic value of lost life. That brought women's annual obesity costs up to $8,365, and men's to $6,518.

The report was financed by one of the manufacturers of gastric banding, a type of obesity surgery.

The numbers are in line with other research and are not surprising, said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine and health economist at Duke University who wasn't involved in the new report.

Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, and childhood obesity has tripled in the past three decades. Nearly 18 percent of adolescents now are obese, facing a future of diabetes, heart disease and other ailments.

Looking at the price tag may help policymakers weigh the value of spending to prevent and fight obesity, said Schulman, pointing to factors like dietary changes over the past 30 years and physical environments that discourage physical activity.

"We're paying a very high price as a society for obesity, and why don't we think about it as a problem of enormous magnitude to our economy?" he asks. "We're creating obesity and we need to do a man-on-the-moon effort to solve this before those poor kids in elementary school become diabetic middle-aged people."

A major study published last year found medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for the obese than normal-weight people. Tuesday's report added mostly work-related costs — things like sick days and disability claims — related to those health problems.

It also included a quirky finding, a study that calculated nearly 1 billion additional gallons of gasoline (3.8 billion liters) are used every year because of increases in car passengers' weight since 1960.

Tuesday

Back Squats 3-3-3-3-3

Rest 5-10 minutes

3 Rounds for time of

20 Box Jumps

20 Wall Balls

400 Meter Run

Monday

"DIAFRAN"

3 Rounds

15 Deadlifts (225/155)

15 HSPU

15 Thrusters (95/65)

15 Pull Ups

For Harvey:

15 DB Deadlifts (75/55)

15 HSPU

15 DB Thrusters (35/25)

15 Pull ups

One Week Left

Awesome job so far on fundraising this year for Fight Gone Bad - we have raised $4,377.00 so far! I know we can get above $5,000 - send out that last batch of emails this week asking for support; this cause is far too large to stop now.

As you guys are getting ready to throw down there, I am jumping though my ass to put on a FGB5 WOD over here. I have people from the US Embassy coming up for it and CrossFitters crawling out of the woodwork for it. The demand has been so high, FGB created a Camp Liberty affilaite for people to register under, just to support our efforts over here.

If you raise $150 or more, you will receive a FGB5 t-shirt. It takes about 6 weeks for them to arrive and they will be mailed to Mel, who will bring them in for distribution.

Great work, stay after it and tear up the WOD next week!

Don

Friday!

Jacob's Ladder: For Time

20 Overhead Squats 95/65

15 Pull Ups

10 Ring Push Ups

5 KB Swings 55/35

20 Pull Ups

15 Ring Push Ups

10 KB Swings

5 Overhead Squats

20 Ring Push Ups

15 KB Swings

10 Overhead Squats

5 Pull Ups

20 KB Swings

15 Overhead Squats

10 Pull Ups

5 Ring Push Ups For Harvey: Sub one arm DB OHS and regular Push ups

Amazing Grace Event at CrossFit Centex in October

Coming up on Saturday, October 16 at 9am at Centex CrossFit in Belton!

"Amazing Grace" is an annual fundraiser sponsored by the CrossFit Journal and supported by the CrossFit community. Grace is a named CrossFit workout, 30 clean and jerks for time. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Mammograms In Action, a non-profit organization located in Lake Forest, CA.

Sign up to participate at CrossFit Centex's website: www.crossfitcentex.com.

Thursday

CF Games 2010 WOD

(modified for time/weight)

AMRAP 12 minutes

Deadlifts 275 / 185

Run 50 meters

14 pistols (7 each leg)

21 Double Unders

Run 50 meters