Obesity Driving Rising U.S. Health Costs(e that Americans have more chronic disea...),Health

Obesity rates in Europe are rising fast, so "we are exporting our bad example and higher health-care costs may well follow [there]," Katz said. "Without a doubt, the high costs of health care are best reduced by the propagation of health. Defining how best to get there from here is as yet a challenge inadequately met."

Another health-care cost expert agreed.

"I'm not sure obesity is a medical condition that lends itself to medical treatment," said Greg Scandlen, the founder of Consumers for Health Care Choices, a health-care lobbying group. "Certainly, it does suggest the need for more exercise and better diets, but that is a grandmother's advice. Do we need highly trained and expensive professionals telling people what grandmothers have told them for free for generations?"

"I'm just not sure this information is of much use to the health-care system, though it may be for the education system," Scandlen said. His suggestions? "Bring back P.E. classes, [use the] transportation system, use more bicycles and fewer cars, and urban design, get rid of escalators so people will walk up stairs," he said.

More information

For more information on the cost of health care, visit the Kaiser Family Foundation.

SOURCES: Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., chairman, department of health policy and management, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta; David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Greg Scandlen, founder, Consumers for Health Care Choices, Hagerstown, Md.; Oct. 2, 2007, Health Affairs online