The Cost of Obesity in America

By Susan Brady

The Cost of Obesity in America

Obesity means big business, and I don’t mean just the amount of food it takes to support the overeaters of the world. I am talking about the increase in the cost of medical insurance; the doctor, hospital and prescription bills it generates; the increase in disability payments to workers no longer able to be part of the work force. And then there is the diet and fitness industry, which can suck you dry on the promise of weight loss.

Statistics show that almost 30 percent of Americans are obese (BMI of 30 or above) and that the related cost of that obesity hit $270 billion (yes, with a “B”). Canada, with about 11 percent of the population of the U.S. spends about $30 billion. The Society of Actuaries (SOA) breaks out the cost of obesity on these two nations as follows:

$127 billion in the increased need for medical care

$72 billion loss of productivity due to total disability

$49 billion loss of worker productivity due to higher rates of death

$43 billion loss of productivity due to disability of active workers

"Overweight and obesity have been shown to increase the rate of several common adverse medical conditions, resulting in this extraordinary economic cost to society," study author Don Behan said in a SOA news release

Our European counterparts don’t fare much better. Across the pond, 50.1 percent of Europeans are defined as overweight or obese, a number which has doubled in the last twenty years. The health expenditure as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) in the European Union increased from 7.3% in 1998 to 8.3% in 2008. And the EU report, “Health at a Glance—Europe 2010,” quoted a recent British study which predicted a 70% increase in healthcare costs caused by the rise in obesity/overweight between 2007 and 2015.

An analysis, "A Heavy Burden: The Individual Costs of Being Overweight and Obese in the United States," conducted by George Washington University researchers found that the annual cost of being overweight is $524 for a woman and $432 for a man, while the extra pounds that qualify a person as obese ups those costs to $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man. Add in a shortened life span and the annual costs grow to $8,365 and $6,518, for women and men, respectively.

source : healthnews.com