Stay fat - save money

Here's an interesting notion from the Public Library of Science. Turns out, being an overweight smoker isn't such a bad thing for society.

While the common wisdom has been that health care costs for the overweight are much more than they are for healthy people - which could further bankrupt our already bankrupt health care system - it turns out that the throngs of jogging, rock climbing, snowboarders pose their own drain on society:

They live too long.

A recent study found that the costs of being unhealthy were the same or less than the costs associated with the longer lifespans of healthy people.

According to the study:

"Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures."

Check out the full study here:

Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure

So hey, I'm going to go have another doughnut. Woot!

Cheers,
-SueVo