| |
Nearly
10
percent
of
health
spending
for
obesity
By
LAURAN
NEERGAARD
AP
Medical
Writer
Obesity's
not just
dangerous,
it's
expensive.
New
research
shows
medical
spending
averages
$1,400
more a
year for
an obese
person
than for
someone
who's
normal
weight.
Overall
obesity-related
health
spending
reaches
$147
billion,
double
what it
was
nearly a
decade
ago,
says the
study
published
Monday,
July 27,
2009 by
the
journal
Health
Affairs.
The
higher
expense
reflects
the
costs of
treating
diabetes,
heart
disease
and
other
ailments
far more
common
for the
overweight,
concluded
the
study by
government
scientists
and the
nonprofit
research
group
RTI
International.
RTI
health
economist
Eric
Finkelstein
offers a
blunt
message
for
lawmakers
trying
to
revamp
the
health
care
system:
"Unless
you
address
obesity,
you're
never
going to
address
rising
health
care
costs."
Two-thirds
of
Americans
are
either
overweight
or
obese,
and the
average
American
today is
23
pounds
overweight,
said Dr.
Thomas
Frieden,
director
of the
Centers
for
Disease
Control
and
Prevention.
"Obesity
and with
it
diabetes
are the
only
major
health
problems
that are
getting
worse in
this
country,
and
they're
getting
worse
rapidly,"
Frieden
said
Monday
at the
CDC's
first
major
conference
on the
obesity
crisis.
It's not
an
individual
problem
but a
societal
problem
— as the
nation's
health
bill
illustrates
— that
will
take
society-wide
efforts
to
reverse,
Frieden
stressed.
His
agency
last
week
released
a list
of
strategies
it wants
communities
to try.
They
include:
increasing
healthy
foods
and
drinks
in
schools
and
other
public
venues;
building
more
supermarkets
in poor
neighborhoods;
encouraging
more
mothers
to
breast-feed,
which
protects
against
childhood
obesity;
and
discouraging
consumption
of sodas
and
other
sweetened
beverages.
The
average
American
consumes
250 more
daily
calories
today
than two
or three
decades
ago, 120
of them
from
those
kinds of
drinks,
Frieden
said.
Science
suggests
that
while
eating a
candy
bar
before
dinner
will
spoil
your
appetite,
liquid
calories
don't —
you
won't
cut back
on
dinner
if you
have a
sugary
soda
first.
He said
there's
some
evidence
that
adding a
tax to
those
drinks
might
help
curb
consumption,
although
he
stressed
that
wasn't a
view of
the
Obama
administration.
The new
Health
Affairs
study
found
obesity-related
conditions
now
account
for 9.1
percent
of all
medical
spending,
up from
6.5
percent
in 1998.
During
that
time,
the
obesity
rate
rose 37
percent.
On
average,
health
bills
for a
normal-weight
person
are
about
$3,400 a
year,
but that
rises to
$4,870
for
someone
who's
obese,
Finkelstein
said.
Prescription
drugs
are the
biggest
driver
of those
costs:
Medicare
spends
about
$600
more per
year on
medications
for an
obese
beneficiary
than a
normal-weight
one.
Health
economists
have
long
warned
that
obesity
is a
driving
force
behind
the rise
in
health
spending.
For
example,
diabetes
costs
the
nation
$190
billion
a year
to
treat,
and
excess
weight
is the
single
biggest
risk
factor
for
developing
diabetes.
Moreover,
obese
diabetics
are the
hardest
to
treat,
with
higher
rates of
foot
ulcers
and
amputations,
among
other
things.
The new
study's
look at
per-capita
spending
may
offer a
shock to
the
wallets
of
people
who
haven't
yet
heeded
health
warnings.
"Health
care
costs
are
dramatically
higher
for
people
who are
obese
and it
doesn't
have to
be that
way,"
said
Jeff
Levi of
the
nonprofit
Trust
for
America's
Health,
who
wasn't
involved
in the
new
research.
"We have
ways of
changing
behavior
and
changing
those
health
outcomes
so that
we don't
have to
deal
with the
medical
consequences
of
obesity,"
added
Levi,
who
advocates
community-based
programs
that
promote
physical
activity
and
better
nutrition.
|
