How much does obesity cost, and who pays? This topic is so controversial and the statistics are so overwhelming that entire Web sites are devoted to infographics and studies about obesity. The following list of twenty-five Web sites, articles and studies that show the cost of obesity show how obesity affects everything from everyone’s health costs to the price of gasoline.

The following sites are divided into three categories, and each link is listed alphabetically within those categories.

Web Sites

1. America’s Health Rankings: This site provides the longest-running annual assessment of the nation’s health on a state-by-state basis. They recently uploaded a new state obesity calculator.
2. Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health: The World Health Organization (WHO) focuses on obesity in this section of their Web site. While the site provides statistics and articles on obesity, their underlying focus is on healthcare costs.
3. International Association for the Study of Obesity: Learn more about this global initiative to reduce health and economic problems caused by obesity.
4. Metabolism Society: This entire Web site is devoted to teaching readers about metabolism and how it works. This link leads to the “Obesity” section of the site, where the editors have posted a position statement on obesity.
5. Obesity: Facts, Figures, Guidelines: This site, part of the West Virginia Health Statistic Center, provides information about obesity nationwide and within West Virginia, including costs, graphs, possible solutions and links to more information.
6. Prevalence, cost and scope of obesity in Canada: This Web site, offered by the Merck Frosst/CIHR Research Chair in Obesity, provides an intensive overview of the economics and health patterns of obesity at all ages. Use the site map linked at the bottom of the page to learn more about this site.
7. Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity: Yale University provides this Web site, with a focus on a healthy world and reduction of health costs presented by obesity. Readers often can participate in their studies.
8. Statistics Related to Overweight and Obesity: The Weight-control Information Network is provided by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) group. Among other topics, they show the economic costs related to obesity.
9. The Obesity Society: This group is committed to encouraging research on the causes and treatments for obesity. Their site is filled with graphs and statistics.

Articles

10. A Rundown of Obesity’s Hidden Costs: Forbes.com provides a slide show that introduces various aspects of the costs of obesity, including the rising cost of jet fuel, larger meals and more issues that affects all American – overweight or not (click on the link at the bottom of Forbes’ article to see the slide show).
11. Almost 10 Percent of U.S. Medical Costs Tied to Obesity: ABC News Health provides a lengthy article that shows how healthy behaviors can bring health costs down.
12. Cost of Treating Obesity Soars: The Wall Street Journal provides a recent article comparing health care costs for obesity.
13. Health experts: Obesity pandemic looms: MSNBC provides an article out of Australia that talks about a global obesity pandemic and how it will affect economics.
14. Obesity: Economic Dimensions of a “Super Size” Problem: Learn more about how obesity affects economics and economic growth.
15. Swallowing the Cost of Obesity Treatment: Workforce Management offers an article that shows how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina scrutinized medical costs and claims data for its obese members. Overweight individuals’ care cost at least 30 percent more than normal-weight members.
16. The cost of obesity in the United States: Executive Healthcare provides an article with graphs that shows the high cost of obesity nationwide.

Studies

17. Economic Burden of Obesity in Youths Aged 6 to 17 Years: 1979–1999: This study analyzes diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea, and gallbladder disease as well as other obesity-associated diseases for which obesity was listed as a secondary diagnosis. Download this Pediatrics study in the right column of the linked page.
18. Health Insurance, Obesity, and Its Economic Costs [PDF]: Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University and Neeraj Sood from the RAND Corporation provide a study that shows the obese contract chronic diseases at a higher rate than the non-obese, and consequently pay more for medical care.
19. Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure: Findings in this study suggest that, although effective obesity prevention reduces the costs of obesity-related diseases, this reduction is offset by the increased costs of diseases unrelated to obesity that occur during the extra years of life gained by slimming down.
20. Long-term weight-loss maintenance: a meta-analysis of US studies: Download the full text of this article, which shows that current treatment programs for obese individuals are not very effective over the long term, leading to the common wisdom that persons who successfully lose weight will regain it all within 5 years.
21. Overweight and Obesity: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Provides a section on the topic of obesity, showing causes, consequences, statistics and data and state-based programs that may help reduce the obesity problem.
22. The Economic Burden of Obesity on Rural Communities [PDF]: Although this case study focuses on rural Kentucky, the study also shows nationwide figures.
23. The Economic Costs of Physical Inactivity, Obesity, and Overweight in California Adults [PDF] This study concentrates on health care costs, workers’ compensation and lost productivity that results from obesity (2005).
24. The economic impact of obesity on automobile fuel consumption: Entrepreneur takes a serious look at the socio-economic issue of how obesity and gas consumption relate to each other.
25. The Future Costs of Obesity [PDF]: This is a collaborative report from United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention based on research by Kenneth E. Thorpe, Ph.D. of Emory University, that shows national and state estimates of the impact of obesity on direct health care expenses.

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