Obesity Rates Weigh Down Cities' Budgets

News Flash!

Cities searching for ways to trim the fat and stretch their budget dollars may want to start looking at residents’ waistlines.

A new study suggests that trimming high obesity rates in the nation’s most overweight cities could help local governments save more than $32 billion annually nationwide in associated health care costs.

New information from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index shows more than 6 in 10 or 62.9% of American adults were either overweight or obese in 2010, slightly more than the 62.2% reported in 2008.

Researchers estimate that direct health care costs associated with obesity are about $50 million each year per 100,000 residents in U.S. cities with the highest obesity rates.

That means if the nation’s 10 most overweight cities -- each with more than a third of its residents classified as obese with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 -- reduced their obesity levels to the 2009 national average of 26.5%, they could collectively save nearly $500 million in health care costs each year.

Probably more.

Charge the bronto sapiens more for the things they use: über-sized clothes, zoo-level scales, ton-tested toilets, Nimitz-class wheelchairs and Bunyan-esque caskets, flabulances, etc.

Otherwise, the calorically responsible among us have to foot the bill.

Fight back.