Can't have it both ways - is obesity really straining the healthcare system?

Are healthcare costs for obese people really more than those for healthy people? By current estimates, about 9.1 percent of annual US medical costs are obesity-related.  Additionally, up to 86 percent of Americans will be overweight and 51 percent obese by 2030.

Even with that data, it depends on who you ask.  The anti-obesity campaign uses this fact as a standard under which to rally the faithful.  Mayor Menino even cited it as a basis for banning the sale and marketing of soda on city property and at city sponsored events.  If expenses are more for obese people, then making soda equivalent to contraband makes sense, since it accounts for about 10 percent of the calories in the US diet. 

On one hand, obesity, a major cause of disease and death is associated with high medical expenditures and prevention of the condition may result in savings. Patients tend to succumb to other critical diseases like cancer but obesity is different.  It creates chronic conditions like diabetes which are very costly to treat and manage. 

On the other hand, obesity prevention results in higher life expectancy and living longer has it's own expenses i.e. conditions that naturally come with age (joint and bone problems) and other diseases that are unrelated to obesity.

This would suggest that obesity prevention, while important and critical, is not what's going to bring healthcare costs down.  Clearly, there are other factors which may not have the high profile of obesity but contribute to high healthcare expenses.

Then, there is the issue of definition.  Are we talking about stage of life costs or life time costs?


A Dutch study showed that from age 20 to 56, obese people incurred extremely high health costs.  However, because obese people may have shorter lives than healthy individuals, it costs less to treat them in the long run. 

So what's the responsible and/or effective thing to do?  Soda tax, fat tax, banning soda, encouraging healthy choices, lowering the price of healthy food, creating more green space for low income urban youth to exercise, all of the above.