Aug 23, 2007

Patron Saint of Weight Watchers

St. Mochta is a good patron saint for all of us who wish to curb their appetites for spiritual advantage and control their weight for physical motives. Butler's "The Lives of the Saints" notes that St. Mochta (Mochteus) never ate a morsel of fat as a way of curbing his appetite for such foods. [Note: some liquid oils are necessary for good health.]

The result was that the Abbot Mochta lived a very long life, fabled to be three hundred years (but the evidence is that he lived to be about ninety). St. Mochta was a contemporary of St Patrick, who is said to have built the original church in Louth, Ireland and to have appointed St Mochta the first Bishop of Louth.

Search on the word "eat" and note that Google keeps bringing up the word "death", in which "eat" are the middle letters. Now search on the two words together and see that Americans Eat Themselves to Death:
...inactive Americans are eating themselves to death at an alarming rate, their unhealthy habits fast approaching tobacco as the top underlying preventable cause of death, a government study found.

In 2000, poor diet including obesity and physical inactivity caused 400,000 U.S. deaths - more than 16 percent of all deaths and the No. 2 killer. That compares with 435,000 for tobacco, or 18 percent, as the top underlying killer.
Obesity is highly related to health problems such as daily stomach acid reflux, knee replacements, feet problems, heart attacks, and diabetes. Should the government then partially subsidize weight loss programs for obese persons? Private health insurance companies usually do not cover obesity treatments, even those known to be highly effective, yet costing as little as $12/week, such as Weight Watchers. Until 2004, the government-sponsored Medicare did not consider obesity to be a disease or illness and would not authorize any payments or services to treat obesity.

I wonder if more health bang for the buck wouldn't be generated by allowing deductions for taxpayers' enrollment in programs similar to Weight Watchers. Should the government allow individuals to subtract expenses for an approved weight loss program from their gross income, before paying income tax? Why? Or why not? I'd like to hear your opinion.

3 comments:

Girl on a Mission... said...

http://dietingbattle.blogspot.com/

I hear ya loud and clear!
I'm going to be accountable for my actions and blog my way to success.

Thank you for your information!

Anonymous said...

Definitely, the government should not give a tax break for people to eat less. That is akin to them giving me a tax break for me to put my children in a day care center or buy a hybrid car. Why don't they just lower everyones taxes? As a dear friend of mine once said, "Let me decide how to spend MY money. If I want to send my children to college or buy my granny aspirin, then I will."

By the way, if you eat less, you will spend less and therefore have more money. Also, exercise is free. You can walk and even walk stairs which is even better.

Anonymous said...

"If you eat less, then you spend less."

Eating well and healthy can easily *double* your grocery bill. Organic vegetables cost more, lean meats are the most expensive, and whole grain/low cal breads and grains cost a helluva lot more than the giant loaf of white bread. Olive and Canola oil cost more than vegetable shortening.

That being said, you'll likely spend much less on health care in the long run, which makes it worth it, but it *absolutely* costs more at the grocery store to eat well.