According to Men's Health magazine, over the past two years, the cost of vegetables, meat, fruit, and other high-nutrition, low-calorie foods has increased by an average of 19.5 percent. But the price of junk foods have actually decreased slightly, by 1.8 percent.
Researchers recently estimated the cost of a diet based on high-calorie foods versus one based on healthy, low-calorie foods. You could eat the high-calorie diet for $3.52 a day. The low-cal diet? Hide your wallet - cost $36.32 per day!
That dollar figure looks pretty bad on the surface, but think about what else is effected by what you eat. The long-term costs of bad eating habits can make that look cheap.
Here's just a few of the ways that being overweight can effect your wallet:
- More expensive life insurance premiums
- More expensive health insurance premiums
- Lower pay - I'm not making this up
- More expensive clothes
- More visits to the doctor (obese people tend to spend 42% more than fit people on medical costs)
- Prescription drugs
- Travel (most airlines now charge obese passengers for two seats)
Overweight people are 25 percent more likely to be hospitalized for heart disease than slim people. Their hospital stays are 16 percent longer. Their risk of high blood pressure is 44 percent higher; the risk of developing kidney cancer is 42 percent higher; the risk of high cholesterol, 33 percent higher. And those numbers only get worse if you’re obese.
Bottom line is that while eating healthy will cost you more at the grocery, the return on investment is something that you need to keep in mind. Plus, everyone knows that the benefits to eating healthy far outweigh the additional cost.
TODAY'S WORKOUT:
45 minutes of weights (back, biceps, abs)
Swam 864 yards (0.49 miles) in 16:48 (34:13/mile pace)
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