What’s the cost of obesity? Just check the hospitals in Lakeland, Florida. Many of the patients are there either because of obesity or the diseases contributed to by obesity. In fact, the epidemic of obesity has led to increased spending for health issues. It costs more to purchase personal goods if you’re obese. Annually, an obese woman pays $4,879 more and a man pays $2,646 more.
Obesity costs the nation billions of dollars.
Not only do obese people pay more, obesity drives up the cost for everyone. It’s responsible for $61.8 billion in Medicare and Medicaid costs. Wiping out obesity could reduce the spending of both by approximately 10%. Total costs of medical treatment for obese-related diseases is between $147 billion to $210 billion. One of the co-morbidities of covid-19 was obesity. It was a major risk factor for serious complications of the disease.
Besides increased medical costs, there’s loss of work that needs to be considered.
It’s more than just hospital costs that are affected by obesity. Obesity is attributed to increases in lost work days, which is estimated as a loss of $8.65 billion dollars a year in overall productivity. Those findings were reported in a publication by Yale’s Rudd Center researchers. There’s a human side to the cost of obesity. It’s the suffering of the obese person. Watching others participate in life, yet not having the energy or fitness to join in can be painful. Feeling the social stigma, depression, discrimination and lack of self-esteem is also real.
It’s hard to reverse the trend, but it can be done.
It takes hard work, but it’s definitely worth the effort. By increasing your activity level and adjusting your diet to make it healthier, you can lose weight. In fact, once you feel the exhilaration of success in both the gym and on the scales, you’ll be motivated to stick with the program. It doesn’t matter if you are already obese or just on the road to obesity, help is available. Over 80% of American adults can’t pass an aerobic fitness test. 80% of Americans don’t eat enough vegetables and 70% don’t eat enough fruit. You can learn the most effective way to exercise to build muscle and burn calories and how to change your diet to take off weight in a fast, but healthy manner. There’s no better time to start than now.
- If obesity continues to grow at the present rate, the increase in costs is expected to grow by $48 to $66 billion dollars every year. It could cause a loss of productivity that could top out at $580 billion.
- To reduce the rising costs of obesity, the answer is simple. Just reducing the average American’s BMI by five percent could lower the health care costs nationwide.
- Six out of every ten Americans struggle with severe weight problems. That’s approximately 120 million people and about twice as many as there were just ten years ago.
- There’s a rising problem of obesity in children. Of the population between 2 and 18, over 40% of their diet is empty calories, which often includes foods with added sugar, highly processed food and fast food.
For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness