Study Predicts Obesity Apocalypse by 2030

Aug. 2, 2008— -- Rising sea levels. Flying cars. Speculation about what the world will look like a quarter century from now are in no short supply.

But if new research released this week is correct, we can at least be sure of one thing: The forecast calls for fatness.

The study, released this week in the journal Obesity, suggests that by the year 2030, nearly every American will be overweight or obese.

Currently, figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adults at about 66 percent. But lead study author Dr. Youfa Wang of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore says that if current overweight and obesity trends continue, 86 percent of Americans could be overweight or obese by the year 2030.

Even more troubling, the authors note, "By 2048, all American adults would become overweight or obese."

"The results of the study show clearly how the future situation might become if current trends continue," Wang says.

Wang says that the increase in metabolic disease and other weight-related conditions could have a catastrophic toll on public health -- and on the public pocket. If these predictions come to bear, Wang and his colleagues estimate that the additional overweight and obesity burden could add up to an extra $860 billion to $956 billion per year in health expenditures to treat these conditions. All told, this would mean that $1 in every $6 spent on health care would be spent as a result of the overweight and obesity.

While some obesity experts are skeptical of the prediction that nearly all Americans will one day be obese, all agree that the problem is a growing one.

"It will never come to pass that all Americans are overweight, not even in 2048," says Keith-Thomas Ayoob, associate professor and pediatrics nutritionist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y. "That may be a statistical possibility, but not a real one.

"However, the other prediction of 86 percent by 2030 could very well happen. We're almost there."