Reality Check on the Costs of Unhealthy Living

Dutch researchers simulated lifetime costs, starting at age 20, for smokers, the obese, and a "healthy living" cohort that maintained a healthy weight and didn't smoke:

> Healthy living 20 year olds could expect to live to about age 84, compared with age 77 for the smokers and 80 for the obese.

> Those additional years can be expensive: For healthy 20 year olds, the remaining lifetime health care costs over $400,000 [in the Dutch system], nearly a third more than their 'unhealthy' brethren.

Perversely, reducing obesity and the burden of disease it causes may wind up costing the nation more, not less - and in American scale. Hillary Clinton, for example, notes that "had the prevalence of obesity remained the same today as it was in 1987, we would spend 10 percent less per person -- approximately $200 billion -- on health care today."

Change that equation to 30% more, and we're talking 600 billion dollars. Living healthier is a noble goal - but when conducting our cost-benefit analysis, let's start by using fact-based math.

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