The February 18, 2010 issue of FORTUNE magazine has an insightful interview with Delos Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. In the story, Dr. Cosgrove talks at length about how our nation’s growing obesity epidemic is intertwined with the national issue of escalating health care costs. When discussing ways to reduce health care costs, Dr. Cosgrove commented:
“Let’s take obesity. It accounts for 10% of the cost of health care in the U.S. — we will never be able to control the cost of health care until we begin to control the epidemic of obesity. Two-thirds of the U.S. is overweight, and one-third is obese. We are the fattest nation in the world. Our rate of obesity is going up so much that probably half the U.S. will be obese in the next 20 years. We have to do something, and there are plenty of things we can do.”
This is one of the main reasons that incentaHEALTH has put its energy into building a cost-effective platform for targeting obesity. Once you begin looking at health and wellness, you discover that many of the health issues that we are faced with can only be addressed by dedicating significant attention to reducing overweight and obesity.
