The Business Case

Second only to tobacco as the leading cause of poor health and preventable death in the U.S., obesity claims the lives of 112,000 Americans each year. Today, 35% of the U.S. adult population is overweight and 31% are considered obese, conditions that lead to diabetes, coronary artery disease, osteoarthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses.
  • The estimated percentage increase in annual healthcare spending associated with being overweight is 14.5% and with obesity is 37.4%1
  • According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, obesity and overweight annually cost $8.8 billion for heart disease, $98 billion for Type 2 Diabetes and $41 billion for High Blood Pressure.2 Each year physicians’ offices complete 62.6 million visits related to overweight complications.3
  • Employers are estimated to spend at least $13B per year on health care costs for obese and overweight employees, who are responsible for approximately 27% of annual trend in medical premiums. For each unit increase in body mass index (BMI) direct healthcare costs increase 2.3%.4
  • Each year, an estimated 39 million work days are lost and activity is restricted on an additional 239 million days due to obesity-related health problems5

How Much is Obesity Costing Your Company?

The chart on the left shows the prevalence of each BMI group in a typical organization and the excess medical and productivity costs that each person within a BMI group incurs. The average excess cost per person with a BMI of over 25 is $740 per year.

Current research shows the prevalence of obesity increasing to over 40% by 2020 with the highest jumps in prevalence among the BMI 35-39 and BMI 40+ classes. If nothing is done to slow the trend, excess medical and productivity costs for employers will increase by up to 200% for BMI 35+ employees.

To calculate the current excess costs for your organization, click here. 



Source: RTI Obesity Cost Calculator™, developed by RTI International and supported by CDC Foundation, CDC and promoted by the NBGH.


For a free, comprehensive cost analysis customized for your organization, please contact our sales team at 1-866-434-9750 or sales@freeclear.com

Footnotes

1 Finkelstein EA, Fiebelkon IC, Wang G. National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity: How much and who’s paying? Health Affairs website exclusive, www.healthaffairs.org. 2003.
2 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://wi--n.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubd/statistics, 2006.
3 Wolf, AM. Manson JE, Colditz GA. The economic impact overweight and obesity. In: Eckel R, ed. Obesity: Mechanisms and Clinical Management. Portland, OR: Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, Portland 2002.
4 Raebel MA, Malone DC, Conner DA, et al. Health services use and health care costs of obese and non obese individuals. Arch Intern Med. 2004;164:2135-2140.
5 Wolf, AM. Manson JE, Colditz GA. The economic impact overweight and obesity. In: Eckel R, ed. Obesity: Mechanisms and Clinical Management. Portland, OR: Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, Portland 2002.