Lay off helmets and start here:
WASHINGTON - The fatter people get, the more their health insurance costs go up, a study finds.
To counter that, some employers are encouraging their workers to exercise and diet.
"Every pound you put on is important. Even one pound more," said Dee W. Edington, director of the University of Michigan's Health Management Research Center.
Edington and his colleagues found overweight and obese people have medical bills up to $1,500 greater a year than those of people of healthy weight.
Medical costs rose as weight did, said the report in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. The average cost for those of average weight was $2,225. The lowest category of overweight was slightly more, at $2,388, but costs rose more sharply after that, reaching $3,753 for the fattest people.
The finding is in line with a report by the U.S. Surgeon General, which estimated the economic cost of obesity in 2000 at $117 billion. And it comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) documents a rising level of weight gain. The worst fatness extreme or morbid obesity nearly tripled among adults between 1988 and 2000.
Now I gave Senator Hurt somthing else to chew on.
WASHINGTON - The fatter people get, the more their health insurance costs go up, a study finds.
To counter that, some employers are encouraging their workers to exercise and diet.
"Every pound you put on is important. Even one pound more," said Dee W. Edington, director of the University of Michigan's Health Management Research Center.
Edington and his colleagues found overweight and obese people have medical bills up to $1,500 greater a year than those of people of healthy weight.
Medical costs rose as weight did, said the report in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. The average cost for those of average weight was $2,225. The lowest category of overweight was slightly more, at $2,388, but costs rose more sharply after that, reaching $3,753 for the fattest people.
The finding is in line with a report by the U.S. Surgeon General, which estimated the economic cost of obesity in 2000 at $117 billion. And it comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) documents a rising level of weight gain. The worst fatness extreme or morbid obesity nearly tripled among adults between 1988 and 2000.
Now I gave Senator Hurt somthing else to chew on.