Abstracts by keywords: obesity
Adipositas und ihre Folgeerkrankungen zählen weltweit zu den bedeutendsten Herausforderungen für die öffentliche Gesundheit. Mit der steigenden Verbreitung von Adipositas nehmen auch kardiometabolische Erkrankungen (z. B. Typ-2-Diabetes mellitus, arterielle Hypertonie, koronare Herzkrankheit und Herzinsuffizienz), bestimmte Tumorerkrankungen und Muskel-Skelett-Erkrankungen zu. Bei Erwachsenen in Deutschland zählt ein höherer Body-Mass-Index (BMI) zu den größten Risikofaktoren im Hinblick auf die […]
05.10.2026
The statutory health insurance companies are responsible for statutory health insurance (GKV) in Germany. The GKV market is subject to an ongoing, albeit slowing, concentration process with a steadily declining number of providers in the market - the number of health insurance companies has fallen from 950 in 1995 to 110 currently (Federal Health Reporting 2018). The individual health insurance companies are in competition with each other, whereby the majority of their range of services is uniformly designed across all funds via the mandatory GKV service catalogue. The opportunities to stand out from other health insurance companies are very limited. On the service side, this is only possible in the area of the so-called statutory services, via selective contracts with service providers or via additional services. In addition, there is competition over the price in the form of the individual health insurance fund's additional contribution. However, functioning competition in health insurance systems only makes sense if either the conditions for a perfect market are met or balancing mechanisms are implemented that enable functioning competition (cf. also fundamentally Dahl, Lux and Matusiewicz 2012; Matusiewicz 2016).
04.04.2019
Digital media consumption in western industrialized countries is becoming increasingly widespread. These include the use of computers, online services, smartphones, game consoles and television (Colombani & Videlaine, 2013). All of these digital media make up a large proportion of children and young people's leisure activities (Feierabend, Plankenhorn, Rathgeb & Behrens, 2017a, 2017b). Current study results by Feierabend et al. (2017b) show that 98% of German households are equipped with media devices, usually with a large number of them. At the same time, industrialized countries are increasingly confronted with diseases of affluence such as obesity and overweight, which, in addition to the health impairment, also represent a corresponding financial burden on the health systems (Branca, Nikogosian & Lobstein, 2007; Bader, 2012). Data from the Robert Koch Institute's Child and Adolescent Health Survey (KiGGS) show that in 2008, 15% of 3 to 17-year-old German children and adolescents were overweight. Of these, 6.3% are affected by obesity (Kurth & Schaffrath Rosario, 2010). It is questionable which intervention programs can successfully reduce screen time and whether they actually have an influence on BMI. It is possible that digital media can even be used as an opportunity to exercise and thus have a positive influence on BMI.
04.04.2019
The number of people in Germany who suffer from obesity - i.e. have a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 kg/m2 - has been increasing continuously for years. Almost a quarter of the adult population now suffers from obesity (Mensink et al. 2013). Obesity is defined as an excessive increase in body fat. The body mass index (BMI) is used to assess whether obesity is present. One speaks of obesity when the BMI is at least 30 kg/m². The growing number of people who are overweight - sometimes significantly - is widely recognized as one of the greatest challenges for the health systems of industrialized countries. With regard to Germany, Konnopka and colleagues (2009) estimated the direct and indirect costs of overweight and obesity in 2002 at a total of 9.87 billion euros. In a recently published update of this study for 2008, medical costs of 16.80 billion euros (12.24 billion of which were only for obesity) were estimated (Lehnert et al. 2015).