September 8, 2011, Los Angeles Times, Jeannine Stein
Medicare could save billions of dollars if people who were pre-diabetic or at risk for cardiovascular disease took part in community-based weight-loss programs, a study finds.
Researchers projected cost savings for the government healthcare program if millions of people in the U.S. age 60 to 64 participated in a program that helped them lose weight and gain more healthful lifestyle habits. They based their findings on an existing YMCA diabetes prevention program that is, as of this year, at 50 facilities in 24 states. …

June 23, 2011, Bloomberg News, Oliver Renick
Newly diagnosed cancer cases cost the global economy $300 billion in 2010, as illnesses once believed to be largely confined to wealthier countries took hold in developing nations, a Harvard University economist said.
Tobacco use, alcohol intake, obesity and decreased physical activity have grown in poorer countries, causing the rise of cancer and diabetes, said David E. Bloom, professor of economics and demography at Harvard’s School of Public Health in Boston. Bloom and other researchers held a briefing today in advance of the United Nations …

June 20, 2011, Financial, Nina Burjanadze
After having two children 41 year old Marekhi Papuashvili started to put on weight and subsequently lost her job position. Marekhi faced an obesity problem that dramatically changed her life for the worse.
“I spent most of my time at home and didn’t even want to go out. I simply lost the joy of living,” said Papuashvili.
In Georgia people with obesity problems face unemployment more often than others. Their rights are quite limited in terms of employment, career development and social status. Employers always avoid talking …

Los Angeles Times, Lily Kuo, October 31, 2010
Reporting from Beijing — Tian Ning shuffled unsteadily across his room at a weight loss clinic in Beijing, not exactly looking like the picture of health, but triumphant nonetheless.
In six months, Tian has gone from the unglamorous subject of a reality intervention television show called “Tian Weighs 462 Pounds, Beijing’s Fattest Man,” to a man eagerly approaching his ideal weight of 220. His meals are monitored and a machine jiggles his midsection for an hour of exercise each day at the Kelikexin International …

The Huffington Post, Craig Cooper, September 22, 2010
Approximately 1.6 billion adults are now considered overweight by the World Health Organization with at least 400 million considered obese (1). Most of these adults live in the United States with 30 percent of Americans now considered obese. Blacks have a 51 percent higher prevalence of obesity, and Hispanics have a 21 percent higher obesity prevalence compared with whites (2). That’s an enormous number any way you look at it.
And with excess weight comes an excess of problems which have a snowball …

The Washington Post, Sandra g. Boodman, September 21, 2010
Although obesity is a major public health problem – two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese — “there’s relatively little coverage” for treatment of the condition, said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit Washington-based research group with expertise in obesity policy.
Lee and her colleagues reported in a recent study that many states allow insurers to charge obese patients higher premiums or deny coverage of the condition altogether. They also found that only a handful mandate coverage for any of the …

The New York Times,  LESLEY ALDERMAN, December 4, 2009
WHEN I stock up on ibuprofen (my painkiller of choice), I typically buy a 500-count bottle of a store brand like Kirkland or Rite Aid. After all, ibuprofen is ibuprofen. Each pill costs me about 3 cents — or only one-third the cost of 9-cent Advil.
Yet, when it comes to vitamins — which I take only when I feel run down — I turn to name brands like Centrum or Nature Made. My thinking has been: Why mess around with quality when …

By David Sacher, former surgeon general. September 28, 2009
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. David Satcher, 16th surgeon general of the United States, declared that overweight and obesity “have reached epidemic proportions” in the 2001 Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity. The evidence base has steadily improved about how to prevent overweight and obesity, as well as how to help people successfully lose weight. Health system reform can and should be based on this evidence of best practices.
Today, by working together in a nonpartisan way …

JULIE STEENHUYSEN, REUTERS
Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. medical spending or an estimated $147 billion a year, researchers said on Monday.
They said U.S. obesity rates rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, driving an 89 percent increase in spending on treatments for obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other conditions.
Obese people spent an extra $1,429 per year or 42 percent more for medical care in 2006 than did normal weight people, with most of that spent on prescription drugs, the researchers said.
The study, …

Ed Blazina
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 2, 2009)
Obesity and its impact on health care costs have taken center stage in the debate about national health care reform.
And it seems there may be as many ideas about how to address the problem as there are people who are obese.
The issues converged last week when a national study estimated the cost of obesity at $147 billion annually, nearly double what it was 10 years ago; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held its first Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, …