A study released Monday said that obese Americans spend about 42 percent more on health care than normal-weight persons. According to the study published in... More Below...
Posted by A study released Monday said that obese Americans spend about 42 percent more on health care than normal-weight persons.
According to the study published in the journal Health Affairs, medical spending on obesity-related conditions is estimated to have reached $147 billion a year in 2008. This accounts for almost 10 percent of all medical spending.
The figures mean that obese Americans spend $1,429 more on health care per year than normal-weight Americans. Most of the excess spending is for prescription drugs needed to manage obesity-related conditions, said Eric A. Finkelstein, one of the study’s authors and the director of the public health economics program at the Research Triangle Institute, a nonprofit research organization.
The results of the study were presented on Monday at the first Weight of the Nation conference, which was held in Washington by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said, “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 also noted that the average American consumes 250 more calories per day than just two decades ago and the rising obesity rate is the single greatest contributor to a national epidemic of diabetes.
(via The New York Times)
