LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "If nothing is done, it's going to hinder efforts for health care cost containment," Justin Trogdon, a research economist with RTI International says.

Extra weight takes a significant toll on health. It increases the risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, many types of cancer, sleep apnea and other debilitating and chronic illnesses.

"The obesity problem is likely to get much worse without a major public health intervention," the study's lead researcher, Eric Finkelstein declares. In an earlier study, Finkelstein and experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that medical-related costs of obesity may be as high as $147 billion a year, or roughly 9 percent of medical expenditures.

If the obesity rate stays at 2010 levels instead of rising to 42 percent as predicted, then the country could save more than $549.5 billion in weight-related medical expenditures from now till 2030.

Obesity has been one of the biggest contributors in driving up health care spending over the past 20 years, Kenneth Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta says.

The obesity rate was relatively stable in the USA from 1960 to 1980, when about 15 percent of people fell into that category. It increased dramatically in the '80s and '90s and was up to 32 percent in 2000, according to CDC data.

Finkelstein says the estimates assume that the environment that promotes obesity in the USA has neared a peak. The country "is already saturated" with fast-food restaurants, cheap junk food and technologies that render people sedentary at home and work, he says.

"We don't expect the environment to get much worse than it is now, or at least we hope it doesn't."

It must be noted that this projection is far less ominous than one published four years ago that predicted that 51 percent of the population would be obese in 2030. Either way, the trend foretells a huge drag on the health and economic welfare of the United States.

For men, obesity prevalence doubled but has changed little in the past eight years, with no difference between blacks, whites and Mexican Americans (which are the three groups for which there are good data). For white women, the obesity prevalence has not changed in 12 years. It has risen slightly in black women and Mexican American women, although that increase mostly occurred early in that 12-year period.

© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.