Overweight in Alabamaby Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger 28 Aug 2008 10:00 AM
Apparently, the state of Alabama is trying to crack down on obesity by hitting its employees where they live - their pocketbooks. That's right - if you work for the state of Alabama and you're overweight, you'll soon be paying $25.00 more per month for your health insurance as opposed to the employees who are not overweight. This adds up to $300.00 more per year. The state is calling this a financial incentive to lose weight. I haven't decided yet what I call it. On the one hand, it is true that when you're overweight, you do run a higher risk of certain illnesses and diseases, so perhaps you would be a bigger strain on the insurance than would a slimmer employee. However, much of this is based on your constitution. I have many overweight friends who have better eating habits and lower cholesterol than their skinnier peers. You can't arbitrarily say, "You're fatter, so you are going to get sicker." I find myself disliking the term, financial incentive to lose weight. You know, if I gave up junk food, fast food, and treats, I'd be saving around $25.00 a month, if not more. Well, it all depends on the month. And the time of month. And what I've had to do that month. And who I've had to deal with that month . . . back on topic. $25.00 a month is not a whole lot of money, and yet, it is. To save me $25.00 a month doesn't seem all that significant, but to charge me $25.00 a month, because I'm different, is quite a lot. If we take into consideration that skinny people get sick too, doesn't this seem vastly unfair? Why aren't the right to work/equal opportunity activists all over this one? Overweight people have the right to hold jobs, and I believe they should have the same rights as persons who are smaller. If you can't prove that your overweight employees use a certain percentage more of the insurance benefits than do your other employees, I don't believe you have a right to do this. I don't think you have a skinny legal leg to stand on. Related Blogs: Changes in Maternity Benefits for Federal Employees picture courtesy of Morguefile Learn more about Tristi Pinkston  I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006. Relevantweight loss tags children | pregnancy | Coupons | baby | Scrapbooking | weight loss | Food | holidays | Kids | christmas User Comments EmilyJames (249) 28 Aug 2008 10:31 AMI read your article twice b/c I just can't believe it. What is wrong with these insurance companies. Always trying to make an extra buck.  mcmama (51978) 28 Aug 2008 11:24 AMI now live in the part of Florida which is called "LA" - meaning lower Alabama. I recently drove through, stopping at rest stops and cracker barrel on my way to Atlanta. Honestly, I have never seen so many fat people in my life. And I'm fat, losing weight. I found in Atlanta I was very frustrated with food choices. The breakfast at hotels - all sugar cereals, and no healthy choices at all. Plus muffins, high cholesterol. No choices for me. Same with the coffee place outside the office where I had some meetings. Grits were the healthiest choice on the breakfast menu. For dinner, I stayed in my room and ate fruit, or sent out for chinese. Nothing within walking distance of the hotel except grease and sugar. And salt. The one lunch I had out was a turkey sandwich with a side of greens. Guess what. The greens were cooked in salt with a heavy lacing of pulled pork. It isn't just southern cooking. Restaurants, hotels, caterers, and fast food give you NO healthy choices. And it seems particularly bad down here. mcmama (51978) 28 Aug 2008 11:25 AMPS - my doctor says that diabetes, and lack of proper treatment for it, is a HUGE problem down here.  Tristi Pinkston (10839) 28 Aug 2008 11:30 AMI wonder how many of the other southern states also experience the same lack of choices with food, whether it's a regional thing or a state thing, or what. I would be so curious to see some kind of comparison for sickness rates in Alabama amongst the overweight and the skinny. And if the skinny are also eating these high-fat foods, I wonder how much longer they will be skinny. Interesting comments, Janet. Makes me want to go hack into an Alabama doctor's office computer and compare charts. :) mcmama (51978) 28 Aug 2008 08:52 PMI think it is an education thing. I mean, when the hotel chooses the little packets of cereal to put out for breakfast, why no raisin bran? Why only honey cheerios instead of plan? No special K? You don't have to be a health nut to have some pretty mainstream alternatives to sugar pops. I live in a beach community, and people are into exercise. we also have a lot of military here. But I could not believe on that drive, everywhere I went, there were just humongous people, some with their bellies sagging around their knees. And young, too. For some weird reason, obesity and poverty seem to go together. So it has to be a question of choices available and education about choices. And honestly, until I sat down with a dietician (which was paid by insurance) I had no idea how poorly I was eating - and I thought I knew healthy food pretty well. I think for their extra money, Alabama ought to provide a dietician consult for everyone they are penalizing. Tristi Pinkston (10839) 28 Aug 2008 10:12 PMThat's a great idea, Janet! I just might hunt down some e-mail addresses and send that suggestion on over to the folks who run the state of Alabama. I do think education has a lot to do with it. When I was put on my low sodium diet, I was really surprised to learn all I did about the sodium content in foods. Here I thought I'd been really savvy, but apparently not, and that extra bit of knowledge has made all the difference. Community Tags greasy food, overweight, weight loss Discuss this article
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Every so often, I see a news story that just brings me up short. This one caught my eye today.
