By the year 2003 that figure had risen to over 100,000 surgeries...

A new study done by the Rand Corporation in America shows that the number of extremely obese people in the United States of America has risen greatly over the last few years. In fact while all obesity is on the rise the amount of people becoming severely and morbidly obese is rising twice as fast. Severely obese people who are defined as those who are over 100lb. overweight and have a BMI of 40 and over, have risen by half in the United States between the years 2000 & 2005 which is twice as fast as the amount of people who have become normally obese. Even more worrying is that those people who have a BMI of over 50 have risen even faster over the last few years increasing by 75 percent between 2000 and 2005.

These are worrying statistics as morbidly obese people can be a great burden on the state as they often need special surgery like bariatric surgery to prevent them from dying from their condition. They are also much more probable to suffer from diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. The number of these bariatric surgeries that were done in America has risen greatly also. In 1998 it was estimated that around 13,000 of these operations were done. By the year 2003 that figure had risen to over 100,000 surgeries. Last year that figure more than doubled and it is reckoned that well over 200,000 of these operations are going to take place in America in the year 2007.

The organisation that undertook this research is interested in health care and will use their figures to estimate the potential returns from investing in obesity related remedies. It is estimated that a man who has a BMI of more than 40 is going to have to pay out over double the amount for health care than a man who is of normal weight.