Healthy Future US Blog

I get so tired of hearing this: "It costs less to buy a burger from McDonald's that to eat healthy food from the supermarket." "Low-income families just buy processed food, they don't cook their own food anymore." That always sounded questionable.  Here is a study showing in great detail that fast food is much more expensive than healthy food bought at the supermarket . Also, it turns out that the vast majority of meals eaten by low-income families are prepared at home: Blisard N, Stewart H. How low-income households allocate their food budget relative to the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan. Economic research report, United States. Washington, DC: Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2006;20. What is true is that buying healthy vs. unhealthy foods can cost $1.50/person/day more, at retail prices.  However, when health cost consequences are factored in, unhealthy foods cost twice as much .

As Warren Buffett pointed out in May, we have had a long sad march in health care costs, from 5% of GDP about 50 years ago to approaching 18% of GDP today.  So it is irritating to hear "good news" like this:  health costs "only" went up 4-5% last year.  When wages are going up 2-3%, that's a huge cost increase for most families.  A 2% "real", inflation-adjusted annual increase adds up to a 28% increase over 10 years.  That means health care costs passing 10% and heading toward 15% of household incomes.  At the same time, many economists are puzzled as to why wages are not increasing much more rapidly?  As Buffett implied:  It's the health care costs, stupid!   Let's use the "golden rule", putting ourselves in employees' shoes:  If you are given a choice of higher wages and no health insurance, or keeping your health insurance but sacrificing some potential wage increases to pay for health inflation, what would you "ch...

Much appreciated receiving the Presidential Award from Arizona Health and Physical Education in November for our advocacy work with them.  We are making progress on increasing school recess time and adding physical and health education points to the state's A-F school accountability formula.  I love working with our dedicated PE and health ed teachers and the hard-working Association leadership to get kids more active and developing healthier habits!