Ann-Kristin V.
How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis
Fast food, sugary drinks and overeating – it is not a secret to the world’s public that the American diet is an unhealthy one. Whereas scientists incessantly urge for a change in eating habits, American citizens continue to make poor lifestyle choices. These choices do not only affect each individual’s health, but they can also lead to a serious health epidemic and put a heavy burden on the American health care system.
As premature death rates increase dramatically every year, the importance of remodeling American’s diet becomes more and more urgent. Filipovic (2013) highlights in “The way America eats is killing us. Something has to change” that America’s “food system is a national disgrace and a public disaster” (para. 5). Filipovic (2013) implies that poor food choices are closely related to America’s leading causes of death such as diabetes and heart disease and she calls for an immediate change in the food system. Mozaffarian (2017) shares her urgent tone in “How to fix American health care? Fix our terrible American diet” as he states that the high consumption of “salt, processed meats, red meats and sugary drinks” (para. 8) and the lack of vegetables and fruits compose a typical American diet and are responsible for “700,000 deaths each year” (para. 6). This statistic indicates that about half of all heart disease related causes of death in America could have been prevented with healthy eating habits. Furthermore, Mozaffarian (2017) explains that these eating habits not only cause premature death, but also create a challenge for America’s health care system. According to Mozaffarian (2017) $325 billion are spent on cardiovascular diseases alone (para. 12). Due to this high impact of diet on public health and health care both authors express their concern in a serious and urgent tone and call for immediate action.
Even though the effects of eating habits are threatening the public and the health care system, the solution for this problem is relatively simple. Filipovic (2013) claims that the reason for the public health disaster is the lack of governmental policies and she ads that “choosing to eat well isn’t an easily available option for many Americans, in large part because of structures implemented by big food companies and their agents in Congress” (para. 5). Therefore, Filipovic (2013) provides governmental intervention as one solution. She specifically calls for food aid programs for low-income families and stricter regulations for fast-food industries. Mozaffarian suggests a similar solution, which also includes policies. However, Mozaffarian (2017) sets his focus on a health care reform and explains that current cost reductions are not effective because they are cutting expenses for care delivery while “nutrition is virtually ignored by our health care system (para. 14). Thus, Mozaffarian (2017) stresses that governmental policies can be effective in addressing the current health disaster by encouraging healthy food choices by giving incentives rewards and financial benefits. DiMaria-Ghalili, Mirtallo, Tobin, Hark, Van Horn and Palmer (2014) argue in “Challenges and opportunities for nutrition education and training in the health care professions: intraprofessional and interprofessional call to action” that changes also need to be made in the education of health care professionals in order to assist patients properly. Doctors and other health care professionals are important in addressing eating habits as they can directly guide patience and give advice about their food choices in a preventative and disease managing way.
Overall, there are many different ways to counteract the rising disease epidemic. However, all solutions call for government action because nationwide policies are more effective in rearranging dietary habits than personal decisions. Eating habits can no longer be ignored in health debates and disease prevention as recent research and evidence is accounting it for several hundred thousands deaths yearly.