ATLANTA, June 27 (UPI) -- A new study says healthcare costs related to obesity-linked illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol are soaring.
Employers and privately insured families spent $36.5 billion on obesity-linked illnesses in 2002, up from an inflation-adjusted $3.6 billion in 1987, said USA Today.
The study, published in Health Affairs, an online journal of health policy and research, found that treating an obese person cost an average of $1,244 more in 2002 than treating a healthy-weight person. In 1987, the gap was $272.
Lead author Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at Emory University in Atlanta, said the obesity problem is "only going to get worse."
He said, "The costs are up because so many more Americans are obese and because they're being more aggressively treated for weight-related illnesses."
The report said about 31 percent off U.S. adults are considered obese.
