11/17/09 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: While Congress searches for ways to slow the growth of health care spending, a new study suggests that its efforts may be overwhelmed by the surging prevalence of obesity.

The report, to be issued Tuesday, projects that if current trends continue 103 million American adults will be considered obese by 2018. That would be 43 percent of adults, compared to 31 percent in 2008, according to the research by Kenneth E. Thorpe of Emory University, an authority on the cost of treating chronic disease.

Mr. Thorpe concluded that the prevalence of obesity is growing faster than that of any other public health condition in the country’s history. Health care costs related to obesity — which is associated with conditions like hypertension and diabetes — would total $344 billion in 2018, or more than one in five dollars spent on health care, if the trends continue. If the obesity rate were held to its current level, the country would save nearly $200 billion a year by 2018, according to the study.

Mr. Thorpe said in an interview that the health care bills in Congress limit their attack on obesity to a few community-centered pilot programs with insufficient funding. Congress has steered clear of measures that might have a more direct impact, like taxing sugary sodas and fat-laden snacks.

“If we’re interested in bending the cost curve we’ve got to go back to the source of what’s driving spending,” he said. “And if you go back 5 or 10 years it’s not technology at all. It’s the explosion of chronic disease.”

The study is the first to project obesity levels for individual states, according to Mr. Thorpe. He found that by 2018, Colorado would be the only state where less than 30 percent of adults would be obese. In six states — Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota — more than 50 percent of adults would be obese.

The research was conducted for the United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention.