The costs of treating smokers, the obese and the healthy

From an interesting post from LifestyleReviews.

In 2008 the Dutch government looked into the cost of treating people from the age of 20 to death. They had three categories, the healthy, obese and smokers. The results were not what the health gurus were looking for, the paper says:

“Until age 56 annual health expenditure was highest for obese people. At older ages, smokers incurred higher costs. Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers. Obese individuals held an intermediate position. Alternative values of epidemiologic parameters and cost definitions did not alter these conclusions.”

The lifetime costs were in Euros:

Healthy: 281,000

Obese: 250,000

Smokers: 220,000

This will make the healthists feel unwell.