Bad Habits

Okay, so we've heard it all before. Bad habits don't just annoy the people around you, they're bad for you. Sounds familiar, I'm sure. Smoking? Lung cancer, yeah, yeah. Drinking? Liver problems, yeah, okay. But wait! What if I told you that you- yes, you- that fixing your bad habit could actually be stimulating to the economy? It wouldn't necessarily be good for the healthcare sector, but their slice of the GDP is big enough.

Let's start with Obesity. The current stats, according to the US CDC, indicate that 35% of US adults (myself included) and 17% of US children are obese. [1,2] Obesity is defined as an adult with a body mass index of 30 or greater, which isn't necessarily true for everyone (some athletes meet a BMI that classifies them as overweight). The estimated annual cost of obesity in the US adults alone is $147 billion (2008 dollars).[2] That's nearly what we paid our troops in 2011, so we could use that money to double their pay, or more nearly double the budget of the Navy, assuming the money goes to the government's hands.[3] That's also enough to give every American a 30 dollar per month gym membership for a full year. The equation goes something like 147x10^12 ($ cost by obesity) / 4x10^9 (citizens) = $367.5 / 12 (months) = $30.625. It's still not enough to supply people with salads on a daily basis, though.

Smoking? What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't at least touch on smoking. From 2009 to 2012, smoking cost the US $289 billion, including $156 billion in lost productivity.[4] That works out to about $96.3 billion a year. The NFPA estimates there are 30,125 fire departments in the US[5], and with an average new fire engine coming in at about $500,000, that's enough money to buy every fire department in the US six brand new fire engines. The math looks something like 30125 x 500000= 15,062,500,000. Then, 9.63x10^10 / 15,062,500,000 = 6.393... That's a lot of big red trucks. I can also tell you on an informal basis that it would reduce the demand on Fire, ER, and EMS systems for smokers with heart and lung diseases such as COPD and congestive heart failure- which means that we get to you faster when you need us.

Of course, bad habits wouldn't be complete without good old Alcohol. The CDC webpage on Alcohol states that there are 1.2 million ER visits, 2.7 million physician office visits (nearly 4 million total), and $223 billion spent on excess alcohol consumption every year. That's almost as much as spent on obesity and smoking combined! [6] That's enough to buy 18,580,000,000 grand slam sluggers- that's two solid weeks of grand slam sluggers three times a day for every American- with a $4 tip (you're going to tip, right?) at Denny's, though that kind of brings us back around to the obesity problem. $223 billion is also thirty-seven times San Francisco's 2008 budget (here), and it's about thirty times what we spent in discretionary spending on AIDS research. [7]

Aside from the incredible economic damage caused by these three readily preventable behaviors, there's an undeniable human cost as well. Excess alcohol intake is associated with more health problems than I frankly care to list here, is involved in two thirds of all assaults per victim surveys, contributes to risky behavior (such as drunk driving or starting fights you can't finish), and outright kills 88,000 Americans each year.[6] Smoking tobacco is a contributor in almost 500,000 deaths (the population of Wyoming or Fresno) each year.[8] So what's to be done?

There's several public health measures that have been shown to be effective. The first draws from the model of seat belt implementation, in which officers can ticket motorists for not wearing seat belts, on top of automakers making seatbelts readily available and public health information campaigns sharing the importance of seatbelt use. Seat belts alone cut motor vehicle accident mortality by half, and with 2.3 million people going to the emergency department for motor vehicle accidents in 2009, that's a lot of lives saved.[9] Another strategy is to impose a tax, which has been shown some limited efficacy in deterring people from excess tobacco use.[4] Also, you can check out this cool, free website with all sorts of helpful resources for cutting back on risky behavior and making lifestyle changes, including those affecting obesity.

Personally, I think the best solution is to look at all the wasted money and think of the gym memberships, think of the firefighters, THINK OF THE DENNY'S!

and support science, too!


1. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
2. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#cite_note-9 (under budget for 2011)
4. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/index.htm
5. http://apps.usfa.fema.gov/census/summary.cfm
6. http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm
7. http://www.aids.gov/federal-resources/funding-opportunities/how-were-spending/
8. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm
9. http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html