Commit to being healthy

There actually is a pretty simple answer to rising health care costs in this country - not the message I was expecting to hear Friday at the Corridor HealthCare Summit.

“We're going to solve the health care problem by noon,” I told a co-worker as I headed out to the event, sponsored by the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Corridor Business Journal.

I was kidding, of course. I don't have enough room in this column to list the tangled issues involved in health-care talks these days, let alone the proposals that are being floated to try and fix them.

Then keynote speaker Dr. Michael Parkinson, past president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, took the podium and projected a cartoon onto the screen beside him. In it, a chubby man wearing a hospital gown sat on an examining table and said: “Give it to me straight, doc – how long do I have to ignore your advice?”

Fact is, the cost of health care is almost all under our control – if we'd only take control of our health.

Parkinson, once the associate director of medical programs with the Office of the Surgeon General, rattled off a list of figures: 68 percent of adults in this country and 32 percent of children are overweight or obese. Unhealthy behaviors are the cause of 90 percent of diabetes cases, 85 percent of heart disease and 60 percent of all cancers.

He said only 8 percent of Americans ace this healthy behaviors checklist: weigh within 5 pounds of their ideal body weight, exercise 30 minutes a day, eat at least five daily servings of fruits and veggies, abstain from tobacco and no more than two alcoholic drinks per day.

We're so unhealthy, our average adult life expectancy may be decreasing, he said. Children are looking at life spans two to five years shorter than their parents. Call it McLipitor Syndrome, as Parkinson quoted one doctor as saying - we think we can eat, smoke or drink what we want and avoid the consequences by popping pills.

Structural flaws in our medical delivery system must be addressed, efficiencies must be made and gaps in coverage filled. But even the best incentives, models, doctors and equipment won't take us the whole way.

And employers don't have to wait for an act of Congress to start wellness programs that give workers the motivation and tools to start living healthier - and help the company bottom line.

But the very bottom line is our individual commitment to health.

Jennifer Hemmingsen's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Contact the writer at (319) 339-3154 or jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com