The Price You Pay for the Obesity Epidemic

Obesity has been identified as an epidemic in the US for more than two decades and yet the number of overweight and obese adults and children continue to grow. Should you care? Yes, and you should be angry about it because it’s costing YOU money not to mention fewer seats on the subway...

According to the CDC, the medical costs of treating obesity-related diseases may have soared as high as $147 billion in 2008. That’s $490 for each American. In some indirect ways, you’re paying for it even though you may not be obese, whether it be through increased health insurance premiums, having to compensate for coworkers who miss work, or simply not finding a seat on the bus. Some blame liver, thyroid or genetic issues as the culprit, but I can’t help think of my childhood when Dom DeLuise was considered fat in the movie Fatso. He would be considered quite normal these days.

Genetics, liver problems, thyroids don’t cause weight gain. Weight gain happens ONLY if you eat more than you burn. Simple.

The findings were released at a conference on obesity held by the CDC in Washington, D.C. The prevalence of obesity rose 37% between 1998 and 2006, and medical costs climbed to about 9.1% of all U.S. medical costs, the researchers said. Obese people spent 42% more than people of normal weight on medical costs in 2006, a difference of $1,429, the study found.

Obesity burdens the health care system, strains economic resources, and has far reaching social consequences. It even costs our economy 40 million workdays of productivity.

At the risk of being accused of being a fatist or, at the very least, insensitive it’s not Darwin, it’s Doritos.

Sure that $147 billion that obesity is costing the economy could be used in more productive ways, but heck….just keep drinking that coke, snacking on those chips and avoiding any form of physical exertion. You can always have healthy people share some of the burden. That, my friends, in Economics is called a “Moral Hazard” issue.