Economic Cost of Abdominal Obesity

Individual data on health care consumption and associated costs were extracted from registers for the subsequent 7 years. Participants were stratified by presence of chronic disease at entry.

Increased waist circumference at baseline was associated with higher future health care costs. For increased and substantially increased waist circumference health care costs rise at a rate of 1.25% in women and 2.08% in men, per added centimetre above normal waistline.

Thus, as an example, a woman with a waistline of 95 cm and without co-morbidities can be expected to incur an added future cost of approximately USD 397.– per annum compared to a woman in the normal waist circumference group, corresponding to 22% higher health care costs.

Future health care costs are higher for persons who have an increased waist circumference, which suggests that there may be a potential for significant resource savings through prevention of abdominal obesity.