The Issue: Obesity of Americans and the monetary consequences

Their View: These expenses are easily avoidable

In a nation with more than 3.8 million people who weigh more than 300 pounds, the need to reverse the trend immediately was never more imperative.

For example, the cost in Ohio for health care related to obesity is $3 billion a year.

Weight-related illness costs businesses an estimated $12 billion a year in lost productivity and high health care costs, according to Medical Mutual of Ohio, which also says six of 10 Ohioans are classified as being overweight.

Obesity also leads to other health-related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and even some cancers. All those conditions require a steady flow of medicine that costs consumers and health care providers on a regular basis. Diabetes alone affects 17 million Americans, including 118,000 Ohioans.

Any way you look at it, being overweight holds the potential for expenses not to mention illnesses that could possibly be avoided.

- The Marietta Times