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Poor or inadequate diets are linked to 4 of the top 10 causes of death—heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes—and to other health conditions, such as overweight, hypertension, and osteoporosis. ERS research on the health outcomes of a poor diet includes estimating the costs of diet-related illness and premature death.
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- offer an indepth discussion synthesizing ERS research
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Societal Costs of Obesity: How Can We Assess When Federal Interventions Will Pay?—Chronic diseases that result from obesity are taking a large and growing share of U.S. health care expenditures, and many health researchers are calling for Federal intervention to halt the trend toward obesity. How economists should assign dollar benefits to Federal anti-obesity programs remains a mystery. Obesity differs from public health problems economists have examined, such as toxic waste sites or contaminated food, because weight status is largely the result of individual diet and lifestyle choices. Possibly, no anti-obesity intervention could be justified on market failure grounds. However, existing Federal support for health care expenditures for the elderly and those classified as low income show that policy goals include more than efficiency. Intervention could be cost effective if programs could be designed to reduce government expenditures without compromising health.
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updated: January 28, 2003
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