FAT IN THE SYSTEM

Inactivity and extra weight cost Maine residents $2,134,702,914 a year, according to a study sponsored by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and MaineHealth. That is an alarmingly high (and precise) number that suggests investments by employers and others to encourage employees to take the time to stay healthy could pay off. The study is an important benchmark as Maine, like many states, pursues healthier living.

The study, conducted by Chenoweth & Associates of North Carolina, concluded the three major factors contributing to this largely unseen health care cost were lack of physical activity ($1.22 billion), obesity ($600 million) and excess weight short of obesity ($313 million). These result in expensive medical treatment, increased use of workers’ comp and lost productivity on the job.

In the decade or so that physicians, policymakers and various others have been talking about the high cost of America’s growing girth, the problem has quickly stopped being one of education – most people know that Americans are overweight and they believe this is caused by a lack of exercise and the consumption of too many calories.

(Curiously, a recent study by the Pew Research Center reports that in phone interviews with 2,250 U.S. adults, 90 percent knew about the nation’s weight problem but only 40 percent identified themselves as overweight. The actual number, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is 65 percent of Americans either overweight or obese.)

Persuading a car-driven, fast-food, overworked people that what they really need is a nice jog and more broccoli in their lives, no matter how steep the costs of not doing this, is about as difficult as getting people to quit cigarettes. The campaigns against obesity and smoking have been similar – often kid-focused, cost-oriented social cajoling – with one exception. Maine’s big drop in smoking in the 1990s coincided with a big increase in taxes on tobacco.

Taxes already have been suggested on fast food and gasoline as a rough means of both directing the cost of obesity back to the source and a way to fund the health programs that result from the costs of added weight. There isn’t much support for these measures. For one thing, not all people who use these products are unhealthy, and for another, taxing 25 percent of the population (smokers) is a lot easier than taxing 99 percent of it.

Still, after all the encouraging state diet programs have been heralded and failed; after the public-service announcements have been forgotten and the exercise rewards from insurance companies have been lost or broken, a fat tax on fat will look appealing to policymakers. And it probably would work.