Health crisis in America!

A friend of mine has recently begun a training program in "integrated nutrition." She sent out an e-mail to let everyone in the Bay Area know that the head of the training program was coming out to basically sell his training program in a "free seminar."

As a lead-in to one of the paragraphs she used the wording in the title of this post. And, seeing as I am mostly used to seeing this verbage in connection with the "obesity epidemic," it left me wondering if we really do have a crisis in health in the US.

I am well aware that we are spending more and more on healthcare in the US. But I'm also aware that we keep developing new medications and treatments which continue to extend the age of the average American. And we keep making more babies. And when people have 8 babies, we do everything in our power (even spending a disproportionate amount of money) on keeping all those babies alive.

Now I think that we should keep doing these things...I'm a tax and spend liberal, of course....but I think we need to recognize that this "crisis" that we face is also the "opportunities" we have developed for ourselves. We really like the idea of living for a long time. And we are healthier than we have ever been. We also like the idea of taking care of the young and vulnerable...that just makes us feel good.

I'm afraid that if we focus on "crisis" though that we are going to focus on the grey "areas." Indeed, I feel as though the pathologizing of obesity has become one of those areas.

It's frustrating because if we think instead of this as a time of "opportunity," perhaps we can come up with solutions that go beyond witholding or blaming others and figure out a system that serves us all well.