Obesity Could Erase
Health Care Gains in U.S.

The continuing epidemic of obesity in America could wipe out many of the recent improvements in health within the next 20 years, according to a new U.S. analysis released.

If Americans continue to get fatter at current rates, by 2020 about one in five health-care dollars spent on people aged 50 to 69 could be due to obesity -- 50 percent more than now, the Rand Corporation study found.

In 2000, 14 percent of money spent on health care for U.S. men aged 50 to 69 went to obesity-related complications including diabetes and heart disease. In 2020, that could rise to 21 percent, the researchers said.

"Improvements in medical care, public health and other health behaviors have dramatically reduced disability among older Americans in the past," Roland Sturm, a Rand Health senior economist who led the study, said in a statement.

"But the continuing increase in unhealthy weight has the potential to undo many of these health advances."

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index -- a ratio of weight to height -- of more than 30. That usually means being 30 pounds (15 kg) overweight for a woman and 35 to 40 pounds (17 to 20 kg) overweight for a man of average height.

More than 30 percent of U.S. adults are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That translates to 59 million people.

Serious health implications, such as heart disease and diabetes risk, kick in at BMIs of 30 and above.

"The rise in obesity is particularly troubling given that obesity is associated with increased chronic physical illnesses and mortality; its negative consequences may even exceed those of smoking or problem drinking," Sturm and colleagues wrote in the journal Health Affairs, which published the study.

"If the obesity trend were to continue through 2020, without other changes in behavior or medical technology, the proportion reporting fair or poor health would increase by 11.7 percent for men and 14.1 percent for women compared to 2000," they wrote.

The Rand team predicts the proportion of people aged 50 to 69 with disabilities will increase by 18 percent for men and by 22 percent for women between 2000 and 2020.

This will all cost money.

Annual average health care costs for moderately obese people were 20 to 30 percent higher than health care costs for those of normal weight -- those with BMIs of 20 to 25, Rand said.

People with a BMI of more than 35 end up, over a large population, spending 60 percent more on health care. A population of people with BMIs of 40 -- the morbidly obese -- double health care spending.

That has not escaped government attention.

Later on Tuesday, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is scheduled to announce a new obesity initiative.

The RAND study analyzed data from two national surveys -- the Health and Retirement Study of 9,825 people born between 1931 and 1941 and the federal government's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey.