At a conference organized by the Health Promotion Fund for a Healthy Austria, experts recently lectured on approaches to resolve critical future scenarios. One of the core points was the question of the affordability of health care.

Obesity is one of the most pressing health problems and is consistent across all age and social groups. One in five pupils between six and 15 years has an excessively high body weight, eight percent of them are actually obese. Of the adults between 18 and 65 years, almost half are overweight or obese. “One consequence of these developments is an increasing wave of disease and therefore costs to the health care system, because being overweight is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers,” said Ch. Hörhan, head of the funds.

Stress, on the other hand, is an indirect co-causing factor for cardiovascular diseases and mental disorders – albeit indirect and thus often underestimated by health policies. According to surveys, the percentage of Europeans feeling stressed out has raised significantly over the last 10 years. The number of prescribed psychotropic drugs has also increased, as has the number of sick days due to mental problems according to one of the contributors. Among the reasons for invalidity pensions, mental illnesses is already in second place with 29 percent.

Stress can not only be caused by heavy workload, but also by financial problems, difficulties within the social environment or worries about the future. In the past few years, the influence of social, economic and social factors on the health of the population has become clearer – but still with only little consequence on health policies.

Sidenote by R.L.Fellner: according to latest research, apart from other hormonal changes involved by stress, cortisol distribution increases – under certain conditions, this can be a contributing cause for obesity (Cushing’s Syndrome / Hypercortisolism [more]).