Top 3 costliest unhealthy habits to break starting today

We all have some unhealthy habits. While most of us are more than aware of them, life tends to go on without us making any change until some terrible wake-up call happens. A health crisis, an alarming diagnosis or the simple realization of our deteriorating health will do the trick. These unhealthy habits can be various, the most obvious ones are smoking or eating too much junk food, while the less obvious ones are simply not getting enough sleep.

It is hard changing habits. I know that, as I have been in the business of changing prescribing practices of physicians for the past ten years. Once an act becomes part of our normal routine, it is automatic; therefore it operates more on a subconscious level. When dealing with matters controlled by your subconscious, you’d better have some deep founded reasons as to why changing them is what you want to do. While all this can be challenging, kicking unhealthy habits is sure possible.

It would, however, be unreasonable to expect to make a complete turnaround in multiple areas at the same time. That’s why, to create meaningful changes in our life that will last, we should tackle one or two problems at a time. Find your most prominent pain spot. Identify the one or two unhealthy habits in your life that you must undoubtedly break. Otherwise your inaction will be more painful than embarking on the journey of making a positive change. To ensure we get the most bang for our bucks, it’s worth establishing an order of priority concerning which unhealthy habits are causing us the most significant damage and costing us the most. So here are the top 3 costliest unhealthy habits to start with.

1. Drinking soda

The act of drinking soda and other sugary drinks enjoys center stage in an all American lifestyle. Most soda drinkers, while aware of the fact that it’s “not good” for their health, they carry on and give it no further thought. Well, in my mind, your health is your wealth. Once your health is gone, no money can repurchase it. For this reason alone,  let’s take a closer look at what drinking a single can of soda per day can do to your health.

• According to a study published in Diabetes Care in 2010, consuming 1-2 cans of sugary drink per day increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 26%. I have spent many years selling prescription drugs for the treatment of diabetes. While seemingly there is a multitude of meds available to address this issue, I can tell you; none will be able to fix your failing pancreas. It is far easier to prevent this disease altogether than devoting the rest of your life to “managing” it.
• Another study, published in Circulation in 2012, followed 40,000 men for 20 years and found that drinking a single can of sugary beverage per day increases the risk of coronary heart disease and the likelihood of dying from a heart attack by 20%.
• A 22-year follow-up study published in the JAMA in 2012 concluded that of the over 78,000 women those drinking a can of sugary drink per day increased their risk of developing gout by 75%.

Add that to the bone weakening, tooth decay, and caffeine addiction, and you quickly realize, even just from a health perspective, drinking sodas does not make sense. How much do you think the lifetime cost of managing these chronic diseases will run you on a monthly basis? Health care costs are increasing that includes prescription drug prices, doctors office visits, not to mention the price of a loss of quality of life.

Besides the numerous negative implications to your health, buying sodas can hurt your wallet as well. Let’s face it; avid soda drinkers drink way more than a can a day. Just for the sake of example, let’s say someone going through 10 cans a day, pays about 5 dollars for a 24-pack at Costco. At that pace, this supply will last about 2 and a half days. That means almost 15 dollars a week, which is around $780 annually. It seems to me that this is a pretty expensive unhealthy habit, would you say? I am pretty sure you can find smarter ways to spend that amount of money, right?

2. Smoking

According to the American Cancer Society, tobacco smoking is still the number one cause of preventable disease and premature death. One of the many contributing factors to this issue is that it’s not easy to kick the habit. Many experts believe that nicotine is as incredibly addictive as heroin. If you are a smoker, you get to experience first hand the physical symptoms of withdrawal should you not light up for a few hours. Irritability, severe mood swings, nervousness, and insomnia are just a few of the many undesirable side effects, and that makes it incredibly tough to kick this toxic habit. You may think the odds are against you and it is impossible to break free from this dark prison. But think again. Nothing is impossible. It starts with you making a conscious decision to want to do it. So let’s examine, purely from a cost perspective, how much is this habit costing you, or on the flip side, how much will you be saving throughout your lifetime should you decide to quit today:

• Direct cost: To be on the conservative side, if you smoke one pack of cigarette a day, at 12 dollars a pack you will be blowing $4,368 annually. Should you take that money and simply stash it away, in 20 years, you will be $87,360 richer. If you invest it wisely you could end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account.
• Indirect costs: Besides the physical exchange of money for a pack, other indirect costs impact your financial status in a negative way. Smokers pay almost twice as much premium for life insurance, their homes and cars sell for at least 10% less on average than those of non-smokers. Not fair, right? But the fact remains, lighting up will hurt your bottom line on the short and long run.
• Health implications: The most damaging effects of smoking are the ones to your health. There is not a single organ or area in the body that won’t be impacted by the more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds you flood your cells with every time you take a puff. Hundreds of those chemicals are toxic, and at least 69 of them are cancer causing. Besides the apparent causative relation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, there are tons of other types of diseases and cancers that have been linked to this deadly habit. Do yourself a favor, set a date to reclaim your life and start living smoke-free. Watch this video to see what to expect once you make that life-saving decision to quit:

3. Eating fast food

While fast food is a seemingly convenient and inexpensive way to feed yourself and your family, over the long term it has proven to be unbelievably expensive. Back to my initial comment about your health being your greatest wealth, fast food can put you on the fast track to disaster. According to data from the National Health and Examination Survey, 2009-2010, more than 2 in 3 (68.8%) adults are considered to be overweight or obese in the U.S. These statistics are staggering, and the trend continues to worsen.

While there is no single cause to blame for this trend, eating large amounts of nutritionally deficient fast food is undoubtedly a substantial contributing factor. A Big Mac alone contains an overwhelming amount of saturated fat (about 55% of your average daily intake) and a whopping 590 calories. So while for the moment you may think you made a pretty good deal going through drive-through grabbing that Big Mac, at some point you are likely to pay a much higher price for such repeated offense of unhealthy habit.

• Obesity-related medical costs to society: According to data published by the Centers for Disease Control, the health care costs of obesity in the US are estimated to be between $147 billion to $210 billion per year. Obesity-related productivity loss due to absenteeism costs another 4.3 billion dollars to the US economy.
• Direct healthcare costs: Obese adults end up spending about 42% more on direct healthcare costs, such as doctor’s office visits, hospital admissions, tests, etc. than non-obese adults. Patients with a higher BMI also tend to end up on more pharmaceutical products than those of healthy weight.

There is no way around it, to lose weight one must improve nutrition and increase physical activity. Rarely have I seen fast food recommended as part of a healthy balanced diet. Actually, I never have. That’s because offering high-quality nutritious meals is not the business model of fast food chains. Trust me, the best possible way to reduce your spending on health care is by decreasing your dependence on utilizing its products and services. You can achieve this goal by improving your overall well-being, kicking some of your most damaging unhealthy habits and making mindful choices every single day. Why not start with the foods that you chose to put into your mouth?

References: http://stateofobesity.org/healthcare-costs-obesity/