June 25, 2012 | 11:47 AM |

Report: Mass. Could Save $5 Billion By Losing A Little Weight

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, obesity

(Source: Trust For America’s Health)

In February, the non-profit Trust For America’s Health put out a national calculation of how much money we Americans could save if we reduced our average Body Mass Index by 5%. The report, “Bending the Obesity Cost Curve,” figured we could save more than $29 billion in health costs in five years.

Now, the Trust has just sent over the Massachusetts numbers, and though the state generally tends to ace various indicators of healthiness, the stats suggest we could still save a mint.

Today, TFAH has released the same modeling study for the state of Massachusetts, finding that reducing BMI by five percent could lead to health care savings of more than $5 billion in 10 years and $14 billion in 20 years for the state.

Massachusetts has a 22.3% obesity rate, which is expected to grow to 48.7% by 2030 if the state continues on the current track. In 2010, obesity contributed to nearly 500,000 cases of type 2 diabetes, nearly 400,000 cases of coronary heart disease and stroke, and more than 100,000 cases of cancer in Massachusetts. The study’s estimates predict that, if BMI rates are reduced by 5%, 77,200 cases of type 2 diabetes, 65,000 cases of coronary heart disease and stroke and nearly 7,000 cases of cancer can be avoided by 2020.

  • Calamity Jane

    Overweight is a SYMPTOM of a metabolic disorder that includes diabetes, hardening of the arteries, and some heart problems.  If researchers would narrow down and name that specific disorder, discover how and why it happens, then they could stop all the harmful blame and name calling, and tell people how to stay healthy.  But wait… how would that help the drug cartel of Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Government, Big Agriculture, and Big Brainwash Journalism?

  • Reasonable?

     Yeah, this is public health sensationalism.
    My BMI is 26 (overweight by standard measure), but my body fat is around 10 percent (below male avergage and very healthy).  I don’t have 5 percent to lose unless it’s muscle mass or bone density loss. 

    I’m not saying that my situation is average, but an individualized bottom up approach would be more sensical than this blunt analysis from a top down public health perspective.

    A more correct question is: how do we identity people who are overweight and encourage/incentivize them to lose fat and gain muscle. It seems like employers are the right place to start….

  • KSW

    Wow people, apparently you’ve never heard of how statistics can take the variables you scoff at into account, which is why results like this are reported and respected by the scientific community. Spend some quality time with a college-level statistics and experimental design textbook.

    • SVW

       Thanks for assuming none of us have done so! Or have worked in research!

      Besides the problems already raised with research of this type, this also rests on the assumption that obesity has a causal relationship with these diseases – which is far from proven. In fact, the correlation of obesity and diseases such as diabetes isn’t definite. For example, there are multiple studies showing that obesity is a protective factor when it comes to diabetes.

      It also rests on the flawed statistic that is the BMI. The BMI is not some magical predictor of health; it is simply a ratio. I can calculate the ratio of my car’s weight to its length and receive similar information about said car.

      Additionally, scientists are biased too. Yes, there are methods in science and statistics to ideally control for these biases, but they’re not perfect. Scientists are human.

      Finally, this type of fear-mongering, and blaming obesity for the costs of health care, the incidence and prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, etc., directly leads to worse medical treatment of overweight and obese people. As noted, it’s a common experience for overweight and obese folks to go to the doctor with a medical issue, and be told the treatment is to lose weight, even if that is a wildly inappropriate treatment, and would never be offered to someone in the “normal” BMI category.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PDSWF2BUXFMGULVEAMCKZZQD2A Erin Smith

    The problem with “studies” like this is that they make the incredibly lazy assumption that any time a fat person uses medical care, it’s because of their weight. If I, as someone who is fat, show up at the ER with a broken leg, these data dredge studies will only see that my BMI is in the obese range and I required $5,000 in treatment for it. The study will NOT see that I broke my leg because a drunk driver t-boned my car at an intersection… something which being fat did not – could not – cause.

    Meanwhile, it won’t count someone whose BMI is in the so called ‘normal’ range who requires a triple bypass because they never exercise and the closest thing to a vegetable they ever eat is a potato chip. They just assumed that since they’re thin, they’re healthy. It also won’t count a thin person who develops type II diabetes, or ANY thin person who dies of the same illnesses it is assumed are “caused” by being fat.

    A lot of the “expense” caused by fat people is a direct result of interventions they’re convinced they have to have to “save” them from dying of obesity. Even though NONE of those interventions – not eat less/move more, not ‘lifestyle changes’, not this week’s “last diet you’ll ever need”, not the latest craze in diet drugs, not lap band, not gastric bypass, NONE of them – can show more than at best a 5% success rate after five years. Mostly people end up weighing as much or more than they started with… and depending what was done to them they may very well have MORE health problems than they started with!
    Yet, when the costs are drug out in one of these absurd “cost of obesity” data dredges, these often expensive, nearly assured of failure, and frequently dangerous if not downright deadly attempts to lose weight… will be counted along with my broken leg as a “cost of obesity”. In fact, if anyone ever did an actual study on the topic that actually broke down exactly what was the root cause for that health expense, weight LOSS would probably come out as costing the most! Not that that study could be done, since not a single study has ever done better than showing that people with some conditions are also often fat. Which could very well mean that those conditions *cause obesity* as a side effect, rather than the other way around.

  • DNwitt

    Because the media likes simple numbers to tell a story, they believe in the fantasy land where magical medical studies can accurately estimate the results of things that won’t happen. These stories also perpetuate the marvelous fairy tale that if we fixed one health problem there would be some sort of “savings” — as though money will be returned to the pockets of the newly healthy as the healthcare industry gleefully trims its budgets and staffs to reflect this new thinner America. This is not a story. It’s not based on any sort of realistic information. It would be more accurate to write a one-sentence blog post: “America would benefit from being thinner.”

  • 123Anne

    So, everyone should reduce their BMI by 5%?  Babies, people with cancer or AIDS, people who are underweight?   Most studies indicate that fitness is a better measure of health than weight is.   Thin does not equal healthy.