Thin Your Waist to Fatten Your Wallet

My doctor told me to lose weight. … I lost 10 lb. … I gained 10 lb. I’ve said those words to my editor Ann all too often over the last two years. Last month when I proudly announced that I’d bought new walking shoes to replace my old Nike Airs and had lost a bit of weight since my annual checkup, she said that was good news, but that I was fighting the wrong battle. Huh?

Ann has been my editor since I joined Casey Research. She and I share an easy rapport, so I had no problem digesting (pun intended) her comments on my dieting misadventures. Monitoring my health might not be Ann’s highest calling. She’s a member of the New York Bar, and we’d already planned to push her out from behind the curtain to write on legal topics near and dear to our readers. After our recent exchange, however, I insisted this letter be her first guest spot.

A Retirement Guru Eats Broccoli… Maybe

By Ann Coxon

Don’t worry. I’m not going to recommend only eating purple foods while standing on your head and singing the “Hokey Pokey.” Maintaining or regaining your health in your golden years is much simpler than that, and it brings an added bonus: more money.

After quietly listening to Dennis speak about his dieting disasters, I finally risked overstepping professional bounds and told him why he wasn’t having any long-term success and what he could do about it. Instead of taking offense like I feared, he thanked me and all but demanded I share my little health rant with you because so many of his friends and peers share the same struggle. If you don’t fall in that category, good for you!

Now, about that money… For Americans age 65 and older, the mean annual expenditure for drugs is $798; for medical services, $935; for medical supplies, $200; and for health insurance, $3,186. That’s a lot of cash, especially when you consider that the mean after-tax income for this age group is $43,969, according to our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Now, here’s the truly astonishing part: This same group spends a mere $452 on fresh fruits and vegetables. Put another way: Seniors are spending $346 more on drugs each year than they are on fresh, green goodness. Talk about a misallocation of resources!

Some of you are likely thinking, “But I need those drugs to control my blood pressure, or arthritis, or type 2 diabetes.” Just name your ailment. Frankly, you’d probably be right—at least, in the here and now. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. But we all know these lifestyle diseases are largely preventable and sometimes reversible with diet, exercise, and stress reduction.

It’s hard to see the big picture, however, when many or most of your friends and neighbors suffer from similar diseases of civilization. It just seems normal to hand over your hard-earned dollars to Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, etc.