California Conservative

The Business Times reports: “Corpulence and sloth cost $21.7 billion in California in the year 2000, according to the state health department.

That number could rise to $28 billion this year, the department said Tuesday.

The Department of Health Services said direct and indirect medical care related to obesity costs the state $10.2 billion a year, workers’ comp costs $338 million and lost productivity costs $11.2 billion. The report’s figures are in 2000 dollars.”

Those kind of numbers are no small peanuts, people.

“The majority of these costs were shouldered by public and private employers in the form of health insurance and lost productivity,” the report said.

The report said physical inactivity costs the state $13.3 billion a year, obesity costs $6.4 billion, while overweight costs $2 billion. These categories are based on body mass index — those defined as obese have a higher body mass index than those who are overweight.

In 1999, a study found that 35 percent of Californians were overweight, while 17.5 percent were obese. Because people are reluctant to admit their true weight or level of exercise in surveys, the study said, obesity may be as much as 10 percent higher.

[T]he CDC said that Californians have been growing fatter faster than residents of almost any other state, according to the report.

The study showed that even a 5 percent improvement in the rates of physical activity and healthy weight could save California $6 billion over five years, and a 10 percent improvement could save $13 billion.

Talk about having to “slim down” spending. Sounds to me like Arnold needs to force California on a diet, both physically and politically. Less fat, more muscle.

He should be the right man for the job.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Arnold, California. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.