Obesity Still Tops The List

More recent studies have found obesity to be the leading cause of preventable illness and disease Obesity takes away more life years than the other top killers including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even tobacco.

Weight loss, diabetes management and healthy eating should be the primary concern of the American public if we want to see improvements in these types of illness and death. Forty-seven percent more life-years lost than tobacco were linked to obesity in a recent study. That’s hard to believe. And, of course, we have all heard that obesity if a major cause of worse case scenarios regarding the Covid 19 virus that we are still fighting every day.

Helping patients to understand treatment methods, approaches and options could have a significant effect on America's health in the long term. Steps must be taken to get people eating more healthy, less junk food and convincing them to move more. We, as travel nurses and healthcare professionals, know this and we see it daily in our work. I personally think making America more healthy would be a great goal as we continue to prove to the world that we are one of the most unhealthy populations on the planet.

Bad news for plus sized adults for sure, but it would be great if our society realized that we need to move more, not less. Eat less, eat healthy, drink water and of course, quit smoking. These are all behaviors that can be modified if patients are taught the methods required.

Improve your diet, move your body and please stop smoking if you haven’t already. We can do this and as healthcare providers we know the proper procedures to make it so. We have to start with ourselves in order to stay healthy and provide our patients the care they deserve. Be safe!