The Cost of Obesity

According to a recent study by George Washington University the annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for an obese woman and $2,646 for an obese man.

My jaw dropped when I read that.

I am shocked.

And more than just a little dismayed.

I am not happy being obese for many reasons. I don’t like that I can’t move as well as I used to. I don’t like that people think its okay to snicker behind my back. I don’t like that my thighs rub together and get chaffed in the summer if I wear shorts. I don’t like that I have to shop in the Plus size department where there might be only one or two things that are actually cute and they are buried in a mountain of shapeless shifts with animal prints and bedazzling jewels encrusted upon them.

Now I find out that I’m paying just under 5 THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR for the privilege of being fat.

Quite frankly- I can’t afford that anymore.

There are much better things I can think to spend $5,000 a year on. I could go on an all inclusive trip to the Caribbean every year. I could buy new furniture for my apartment. I could put it away to buy a house with a yard so my son could have a puppy. I could send my child to a fancy special education preschool for all his therapies. I could turn the pay channels back on my cable. I could pay off my debt.

I don’t care how good that cheesecake in the kitchen looks. It’s not worth 5 grand!

I had a similar wakeup call when I finally decided to quit smoking. At the time I figured I spent a little over a thousand dollars a year on cigarettes. That figure finally motivated me to quit once and for all. It was more motivating to me than all the medical reasons I was familiar with.

Will reading this do the same for my motivation to lose weight? Hell Yeah!

If my boss came to me and said she would give me a $5,000 a year raise if I got my BMI under 25 you can bet the farm that I would do whatever it takes to do it.