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Obesity Costs

There’s no question that the cost of obesity in America is not just a healthcare concern, but an economic concern as well. But exactly how severe is the cost of obesity, and can tackling the financial aspects of obesity help reverse the obesity trends? This week the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University gathered government officials, academic and food industry experts to discuss the latest thinking and policies regarding food and the problem of obesity. The proliferation of cheap fattening foods and the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids are just two of the financial factors feeding obesity. But if we manipulate the money, experts say we can reverse the fattening trends.

Now, most of us know that being fat is not good for us. The list of diseases caused by obesity, ranging from heart disease to diabetes is long. Still, for several reasons, we choose not to do anything about it, and we remain fat. Dr. Eric Finkelstein, a researcher at RTI International, says, "Being thin is not enough motivation for most of us. Most of us could weigh less if we tried but it’s too difficult in the current environment."

 Perhaps one of the biggest factors, if not the biggest is money. For example, fattening food is cheap; much cheaper than healthy fruits and vegetables. "If we buy that argument, we need to change the cost and benefits of behaviors related to food consumption and physical activity to either make it more costly to engage in those behaviors that are obesity promoting, or up the benefits of weight loss, beyond the weight loss itself," says Dr. Finkelstein.

The solutions are already being discussed and even implemented. For example, taxing the food that’s really bad for us and contributing to obesity. Some states have done it to soft drinks. Dr. Kelly Brownell, the Director of the Rudd Center, says, "Taking categories of foods, which have categorically been shown to be related to the prevalence of obesity, the top of that would be soft drinks, and following that would be fast foods."

 The fact is, 9% of all medical spending is related to obesity. The cost of obesity now rivals that of smoking i.e. somewhere to the tune of 90 billion dollars annually. So the thinking now is, spend now to save later. There is now a bill in Congress that would promote wellness programs at the workplace, like subsidizing gym memberships. Alisa Morris, an aid to Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, says, "The bill would give employers a 50% tax credit to implement worksite comprehensive wellness programs for their employees. For every dollar invested there’s about three dollars yielded."

Factor in lost work days due to obesity related illnesses, and private insurance costs, each severely obese worker—9% of our workforce--costs the employer more than $3000 annually, but it would cost less to prevent the obesity or reverse it. "I think it makes more fiscal sense to pay for it on the front end," says Ms. Morris.

RTI actually asked a group of people how much would it be worth it to them to be paid to lose ten pounds and keep it off for a year. The amount: $175. So, people can easily be swayed by money, and it might be worth it for employers to offer that as an incentive to lose weight, because in the end it may very well save the employer the cost of obesity.

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