Obesity costs us 17% of all medical $$ spent page

[Karma]

This is not surprising, but it does put a dollar figure on the fat ass American.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w16467

I have not read the entire study but the abstract should scare you!

Dave

[milly3]

I've seen studies where it's even higher than 17%! That may be not including related problems...like diabetes, heart disease, strokes, any number of minor illnesses...

[Rip City]

This seems like an irrelevant topic to me. Obesity is a "weight" condition, but the underlying nutritional issues can affect both fat and skinny people alike.
That said, the 17% is probably way too low if the term obese is being interpreted as a blanket term for "unhealthy" In that case I wouldn't be surprised if 80+% of medical costs were directly linked to inadequate health/nutrition.