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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Taro who wrote (243334)	7/25/2005 12:49:48 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573231

America's competitive advantage-obesity Economy of Scale How fat people could save American business. By Daniel Gross Posted Thursday, July 21, 2005, at 3:03 PM PT In last week's cover story on American economic weakness, Fortune portrayed Uncle Sam as a 97-pound weakling. The story was right on target, except for the 97-pound part. It should have been a 297-pound weakling. America's fat problem is a metaphor for our economic troubles: We are too flabby to compete in a cutthroat global economy. But instead of seeing our obesity as a crisis, maybe it's time we recognized it as an opportunity—the rare chance for the United States to dominate a new industry. A whopping 30 percent of Americans over the age of 20 are classified as obese, up from about 14 percent in the early 1970s. Obesity-related medical costs were $75 billion in 2003, almost as much as those from tobacco. Half of these costs were picked up by the public in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association projected that obesity causes about 112,000 premature deaths annually. Viewed one way, however, this is great news: We are ahead of the curve. The world may be getting flatter—thank you, Thomas Friedman—but it is also getting fatter. Our head start in chubbiness gives us the chance to dominate the dynamic fat economy. Our competitive disadvantage in the gym could ultimately be a competitive advantage in the international marketplace. slate.msn.com