Obesity, Diet and Physical Activity Data in England Shows Worsening St Essay - 1

Obesity, Diet and Physical Activity Data in England Shows Worsening State of Health of General Population - Essay Example The same overall trend emerges as the data is further processed and assessed for levels of occurrence of obesity as primary diagnoses for the same population of inpatients in hospitals in England over the decade-long observation period ending in 2013, with levels of occurrence being the highest for the age group from 35 to 54 years, and tapering off from either end of that peak age group (Datawrapper 2015; data.gov.uk 2015): There is another way to view the numbers presented above, that looks at the cost implications of the obesity numbers. Those costs relate to the medical interventions that are undertaken to treat obesity, and this, in turn, can be gauged by a proxy measure of the number of obesity medications that were given to obese inpatients in England for the observation period. Consistent with the overall trend for the occurrence of obesity throughout this observation period, with peaks around 2009-2011 and dips from 2012 to 2013, the numbers for medicine prescriptions to deal with obesity also follow the same peaks and dips (data.gov.uk 2015): Translating those prescription numbers into costs, we see that there has been a substantial overall escalation in obesity medicine costs through time, even with costs at the tail-end of the observation period going down (data.gov.uk 2015): Looking at the data from the perspective of the last plot, we see that obesity translates to very real and large healthcare financial costs. Moreover, extrapolating the figures and adding in the potential incremental costs of medication from the consequences of obesity, such as diabetes, it is natural to expect that the absolute financial costs must be a very large burden on patients and the healthcare system must shoulder. Moving forward, therefore, the overall trend towards worsening health has dire implications for the cost of managing obesity and overall healthcare in England (data.gov.uk 2015).