Americans Keep Packing on the Pounds

It’s time to put the Snickers bar down, America.

That’s the result of a new study from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report shows that obesity rates jumped 25-percent in 28 states last year, with eight states seeing their obesity rate balloon by more than 30%, and that one in three children between the ages of 10 and 17 weighed in somewhere between obese and overweight.

In an article for DailyFinance.com, Melly Alazraki said there are a number of reasons we should be worried.

“Obesity is related to more than 20 major chronic diseases, according to the report,” Alazraki said. “Currently, one in three adults has some form of heart disease, more than 80 million Americans have type 2 diabetes or are prediabetic and obese children are more than twice as likely to die prematurely, or before the age of 55, compared with those of healthy weight.”

All of these statistics add up to one of the report’s most alarming conclusions – if America doesn’t start trimming the fat, this obesity epidemic could cost the U.S. upwards of $147 billion annually in health care bills.

However, not all hope is lost. The report points out that a presidential task force hopes to bring childhood obesity down from 17-percent to 5-percent over the next 20 years. Twenty states are raising the nutritional requirement standard for school meals.

According to Alazraki, “The authors (of the report) recommend increased support for obesity- and disease-prevention programs through the new health reform law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, as well as refocused and realigned federal policies and legislation, among other recommendations.”

In the end, the bottom line of this report is simple — this obesity epidemic could cost the U.S. upwards of $147 annually in health care.