Obesity among children and teens in Maine could cost more than $1 billion over the next 20 years, according to a new University of Maine study.
Today, just under 8 percent of Maine’s children and adolescents are obese. But as those youths grow into adults, that proportion likely will rise to more than 25 percent, according to the study by Todd Gabe, an economics professor at UMaine.
Obese children are much more likely than their healthy-weight peers to grow into obese adults, the study found. The medical costs from obesity increase as people age.
“We’ve all heard about the nationwide obesity epidemic, and these figures bring the problem — especially the challenge facing our children as they become adults — closer to home,” Gabe said.
The medical costs of obesity — including inpatient and outpatient treatment and prescription drugs — for today’s school-age children in Maine will reach $1.2 billion by 2032, Gabe estimates.
That price tag reflects a snapshot of obesity among the current crop of school-age kids in Maine. It doesn’t take into account obesity among future classes of children entering their school-age years or adults.
The estimate also doesn’t include indirect costs, such as lost productivity at work when those children become adults, a factor some studies have shown to be an even bigger drag on the economy than the direct medical costs of obesity, Gabe said.
“If anything, these cost numbers are conservative,” he said.
Gabe’s study was funded in part through a partnership among the Maine Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; the Maine Department of Education; and UMaine’s College of Education and Human Development.
He used statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and data including about 2,000 school-age children in Maine compiled by physical education teachers in 18 schools across the state as part of ongoing research in the UMaine College of Education and Human Development.
Physical education teachers across the state measured the fitness of students ages 10-14.
Among all age groups in Maine, the medical costs of obesity totaled more than $452 million last year, with most of the expense due to adult obesity, according to the study.
Just under 28 percent of adults in Maine are considered obese. A September study by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicted that more than half of all adults in the state will be obese by 2030 if Mainers continue packing on the pounds at current rates.
Adults are identified as obese if their body mass index, a body fat calculation based on individual’s weight and height, totals 30 or higher. Obesity has been linked to numerous health problems in adults, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, asthma and arthritis.
Because children’s body composition depends on gender and varies as they grow, obesity among kids is defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as a body mass index above the 95th percentile for children among the same age and sex.
Other studies have shown that childhood obesity is associated with diabetes, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and mental illness.
Gabe also researched ways Maine could potentially put a dent in future medical costs from obesity. The state could save $100 million over 20 years by slashing the percentage of Maine children who are currently obese by 34 percent, he found. Maine could also net those savings by reducing by 12 percent the likelihood that teens who are at a healthy weight today become obese as adults.
A number of approaches aimed at reducing childhood obesity could help to reduce the burden on Maine’s economy, Gabe said.
And yet we’re still cutting back on Health and Physical Education programs throughout our State. Sometimes I wish I’d been born into a different species on a distant planet.
I wish that we’d better be able to address these problems and not run away from them.
Soon everyone will be too “large” to run from anything! Maybe THEN the lights will go on and we’ll stop for a moment and confront reality.
Why should kids getting excercise be a school priority? Parents can shut off the video games and make sure they eat healthy. We don’t need the schools to worry about this.
Need both. The kids are in school for a significant portion of their waking hours.
Fact. Education, fitness and proper nutrition enables learning and improves the quality of one’s life. Seems like that going it alone/parental control thingy ain’t working out so good, huh? How anyone can look at where we are and see where we are headed (50% adult obesity rate in 2030) and still speak as you have makes me wonder if you’re even able to read with your own eyes…or is it your politics that’s getting in the way?
So, the study was done by the UM system through a foundation that probably gave the grant in association with the liberals in charge in D.C. and have come up with “obesity” as opposed to what was always called “chubby” and would be outgrown by the time the children reached high school.
Just another reason to enter the private kitchens of citizens to check out the refrigerator and cupboards.
Wow. More libertarian dogma, what did I expect. Look around you at the increase in obesity at all ages. Read more on the effects down the road. Research where the granting came from and their motives. More honorable and realistic than yours, I’m sure. If still not convinced, do your own research, not parrot anecdotal dogma.
Per your handle, do you subscribe to live free AND die?
Um… you’re using logic here. Where is your passionate outrage @ a free individual’s behavior? You know, the same folks who claim to want to stay out of people’s bedrooms, yet in reality want to legislate & run every aspect of our lives? You need to get much more emotional if you want to save us from ourselves. The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Yeah, Chicken Littles will put you in your place.
And when they get to UMaine, they can keep that obesity trend going! Sugary sodas, sweet snacks, deep fried foods, fatty desserts-all there for them to eat and with the “permission” of the “Freshman Fifteen” phenomenon, they’ll know they won’t have to blame themselves.
But at least they won’t be allowed to smoke.
Comment in the wrong place again, Bammit!
Comment in the wrong place….
First of all take away all the d*mn electronic games, cellphones, smart phones, etc. and send these kids outside for an hour a day …………….. make all kids do physical education programs at least twice a week.
Maybe keep these kids in school “ALL” day instead of letting them wander in and out to go to a fast food joint.
Of course I’m sure someone would be offended as it might make them lose some of that “FAT”. (I know, for those that will complain that I’m not Politically Correct ………………. guess what, get over it)
When I look around Bangor I see an eatery in every other building. By the time I get home I feel sick and bloated from all the grease in the air and I didn’t even stop and eat anywhere…
Very good article … this is informative.
It makes direct correlation between obesity and the cost to society. No public policy can be developed in the absence of solid data upon which to predicate public policy corrective measures.
Given the enormous cost and human suffering associated with obesity, we should be developing public policy along the same lines as was developed to address smoking tobacco products.
First … allow insurance companies to rate policy holders by BMI and adjust the insurance premium accordingly …as we now do with the questions posed on insurance applications regarding smoking …. the higher the BMI, the higher the health insurance premium. Allow airlines to charge passengers by the BMI.
However, the smoking issue had elements missing from the obesity issue … in smoking we had data that was used to sue the tobacco industry, who put up $$$ Billions to settle … like asbestos …. then the state could debate for long periods on how to use the infusion of settlement funds.
Obesity does not have a private sector element to blame … this is a “personal accountability” issue … and we do not like to address problems that do not have a private sector entity to blame, sue, collect and distribute.
However, we are left with a dilemma … if we hold tobacco users accountable and subject to additional cost (health insurance premiums and high taxes imposed on tobacco products), why do we allow the obese, who impose a very high cost upon society, to escape all accountability?
The BDN, with its journalistic excellence, is encouraged to pursue this topic.
ah yes, the ‘Fat Tax’
….couched nicely in the insurance argument
I was going to say that but you did it nicely. We need to also look at alcohol abuse, people can get S.S.I. disability, medical, dental, low rent housing, food stamps, fuel assistance and all sorts of tax payer help for something that is also personal choice.
Lets look at soda pop, if the two top favorite soda companies don’t change their cancer causing recipes, they will be shut down.
Lets look at J & J. products, baby lotion, oils, shampoo, Aveeno etc also have to change their cancer causing recipes. they were denied to sell outside the U.S. because of it. They changed their product contents about 10 years ago or so for ALL out of country sales but didn’t have to here. They do now but probably won’t be in place until 2015 they say they need time to change it.How many parents coated their kids in J & J products for the last 60-70 years?
The worst part of all this is the FDA has allowed it then blame all of us for using it, even though we were not told it was unsafe. High corn fructose, it’s in everything, it’s bad stuff, it is totally backed by the government, by way of paying farmers NOT to grow it, just their “people”. It just feels like a scam to me. They make us sick then blame us, for the purpose of… denying insurance, health care or trying to cull the herd?
The witch of it is, if you sue the government or their flunky’s, we’re suing ourselves just how sick is that? Vote Gary Johnson or at the very least Roseanne Barr they haven’t been bought by the government like Obama and Romney have been.
Absolutely put a high tax on ingredients that are causing obesity, especially on high fructose corn syrup. Good luck combating the corn syrup lobbyists, though.
the UMBSS claims it only cost 250 mill.
I wonder how many of these kids are on the welfare system and eat junk food daily. Pasta as there main meal 5 out of the 7 days a week.
Oh my god, I am so sick and tired of people telling me about obesity, cigarette smoking, or any other unhealthy activity and/or lifestyle, like the world is coming to an end! We live in a free country! Don’t we? Let it go already, my or my family’s lifestyle choices are not fodder for public consumption. Enough is enough!
Unless, of course, the rest of us pay for you and your addicted children through our health care costs. Your fat kids and your smoking costs all of us. If it didn’t, I couldn’t care less if you smoked and your fat children ate yourselves to death.
I pay mine and my families way. Nobody, NOBODY pays my way and nobody ever has! You can take that miserable used up liberal excuse for your pc drivel and file it.
Be prepared. I hope you have a good nest egg.
Yes, I and mine pay our own way as well. The obese and cigarette smokers drive up the costs for all of us because we must all pay because the obese and smokers get sick more often than the slender non smokers and we must pay for their medical expenses through insurance premiums which we all pay. You don’t understand that? Do you really need me to explain basic economics to you? I know you pay. So do I. We ALL pay more because of obese folks and smokers, just like we all pay more automobile insurance because there are folks operating under the influence.
So where’s the line? When the Nanny’s enacted an adult seatbealt law, I asked when the State would be banning iced cream, and cake at birthday parties. I was booed, and told I was being stupid. Now (several years later) the horizon looks very similar to the run-up to the seatbealt law. Studies telling people how much it will cost to allow people to eat and excercise as they choose.
The poster above makes a good point (of course dismissed by the control freaks) How many liberties do we loose to the society because they cost too much? Free speech could get you shot, and of course, the anti-gun folks will be crawling out of the woodwork. Cars are our least safe device, and should we really be able to just “go for a ride” without a money-making destination in mind? and what about the stress at work that causes all those on-the-job heart attacks.
Maybe a sfer life would be if babies were placed in nice comfortable coffins where illegal Mexican workers can feed them lettuce, blueberries and an occasional protien pill. Very safe, very comfortable, and boring as hell.
very moralistic.
You have got it all wrong. What drives the major portion of the huge costs associated with medical insurance, is only partially attributable to lifestyle choices made by people . The primary driving factor of out of control medical insurance premiums is first and foremost medical malpractice insurance cost followed by greedy medical insurance company shareholders who demand huge profits on their investments.
Yes, you are free to gorge on doritos, puff away, and die early. Congratulations.
Thank you! This is America still! But the liberal machine is doing its best to tear the very fabric of our national identity to pieces.
I just wish the liberal NANNY types would care as much about the unborn children as the ones who make it to birth…
I just wish Conservative NANNY types would stop telling other people what to do with their unwanted zygotes. Here’s a tip for you; don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.
It’s not the governments job to control people and what they eat. Remember the government works for us. No the other way around.
Yes, except we are on the hook for all those obese Americans without health insurance that end up with diabetes, CVD, high blood pressure, etc. Face it, too many choices and laziness.
There’s a new diet out there, it’s called “Stop Eating So Much!”.
Whether we like to hear it or not, many Americans are fat, chunky & obese. We ride rather than walk; we sit in front of the TV or computer; we have become a lazy people. We need to eat less and move more. Sounds simple, right?
We’ve had programs to affect obesity in Maine for years. How much has been spent? We’ve also had programs to address chronic disease. Many studies like this one about the monetary impact have been released. How much has been spent on what in the past 10 years, what are the concrete program results and if they have not worked, who is responsible and what can be changed-other than spending more money to fund studies while the rates continue to go up?