The price of obesity
What a new study says about the cost of fighting illnesses linked to being overweight
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
"Obesity's not just dangerous," said the Associated Press in MSNBC, "it's expensive." New research published in the journal Health Affairs shows that medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for an obese person than for someone who's normal weight. And "don't blame things like stomach-stapling for all those extra bills"—they go toward treating diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments far more common for overweight people.
"The detailed study piles up one troubling statistic after another," said Catherine Arnst in BusinessWeek. Medical spending on conditions linked to the obesity epidemic has nearly doubled in the last decade to $147 billion. That would put the bill at 9.1 percent of total medical spending, up from 6.5 percent in 1998. At a conference sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control to publicize the findings, former president Bill Clinton said, "We must all do more to develop innovative solutions to combat the obesity epidemic."
"Fat warriors" are pushing the fiscal argument to get people to slim down, said Jacob Sullum in Reason. But the sad truth, according to another study, is that eliminating obesity would actually increase spending on health care over a lifetime, "because obese people tend to die sooner than thin people do." So all this talk about the cost of obesity is just meant to distract attention from "the paternalism of the 'public health' agenda," which aims to discourage "sloth and gluttony" through any means possible.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
6 hotels to visit this fall
The Explainer Celebrate the start of a new season with a stay at one of these relaxing properties
By Catherine Garcia Published
-
Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 23 September 2023
The Week’s daily digest of the news agenda, published at 8am
By The Week Staff Published
-
Pinochet’s coup in Chile 50 years on
The Explainer Half a century on, the former leader still sharply divides opinion in his home country
By The Week Staff Published