‘The Economic Costs of Obesity’ by Access Economics found that in 2005, 3.24 million Australians were obese, costing Australia about $3.7 billion.
Obesity epidemic costing Australia $3 billion a year
The Access Economics report author Lynn Pezzullo says the $3.7 billion were the financial costs of obesity, and on top of that there are about another $17 billion which were the loss of healthy life caused by obesity. That’s because obesity is linked to cardiovascular diseases, to diabetes type two, and also to osteoarthritis and a number of cancers.
Read more: ABC net, The World Today, 18 October 2006
The Economic Costs of Obesity
The growing economic cost of obesity in 2008: three years on
Read an updated report (PDF) August 2008