The Economic Cost of Obesity

Transcript

65% of the world’s population live in a country where you’re more likely to die for being obese than you are for being underweight.¹

Because this includes all high-income and middle-income countries, it’s easy to dismiss obesity as a disease of luxury. But if this were true only the super wealthy would be overweight. Why is it then that people with less than a high school degree have the highest obesity rate (32.9%) or that “rates of severe obesity were approximately 1.7 times higher among poor children and adolescents?”^{2, 3}

Obesity is a class issue. “We know that the lower your income, the more likely you are to inhabit an obesogenic environment.”⁴

We live in a country where junk food is subsidized. According to USPIRG.org “In 2011, over $1.28 billion in taxpayer subsidies went to junk food ingredients, bringing the total to  $18.2 billion since 1995.” To put that figure in perspective, $18.2 billion is enough to buy over – 116 Krispy Kreme doughnuts for every single American taxpayer.

“In contrast, only $637 million has gone to subsidies for apples since 1995. That’s enough to buy just half of one apple per taxpayer.”

The average American consumes slightly under 2,700 calories per day.⁵ A 25% increase since the 1970s. And is it any wonder why? The cheapest food is the fattest food and it’s also the least filling. As long as this trend continues, our poor will suffer and the US will continue to have the highest obesity rate in the world.⁶