The intangible costs of overweight and obesity in Germany [13.04.23]

A Hohenheim team led by Prof. Alfonso Sousa-Poza from the Institute of Health Care & Management underscores how existing research into obesity’s economic toll may underestimate its true costs.

Picture source: Pixabay

Original Study

Fan Meng1, Peng Nie1,2,3,4 and Alfonso Sousa‑Poza1,3*

The intangible costs of overweight and obesity in Germany

Health Economics Review (2023) 13:14, doi.org/10.1186/s13561-023-00426-x

1 Institute for Health Care & Public Management, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, 70599, DE
2 School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, CHN
3 IZA, Bonn, DE
4 Health Econometrics and Data Group, University of York, York, UK

Abstract

Background Previous literature documents the direct and indirect economic costs of obesity, yet none has attempted to quantify the intangible costs of obesity. This study focuses on quantifying the intangible costs of one unit body mass index (BMI) increase and being overweight and obese in Germany.
Methods By applying a life satisfaction‑based compensation value analysis to 2002–2018 German Socio‑Economic Panel Survey data for adults aged 18–65, the intangible costs of overweight and obesity are estimated. We apply individual income as a reference for estimating the value of the loss of subjective well‑being due to overweight and obesity.
Results The intangible costs of overweight and obesity in 2018 amount to 42,450 and 13,853 Euros, respectively. A one unit increase in BMI induced a 2553 Euros annual well‑being loss in the overweight and obese relative to those of normal weight. When extrapolated to the entire country, this figure represents approximately 4.3 billion Euros, an intangible cost of obesity similar in magnitude to the direct and indirect costs documented in other studies for Germany. These losses, our analysis reveals, have remained remarkably stable since 2002.
Conclusions Our results underscore how existing research into obesity’s economic toll may underestimate its true costs, and they strongly imply that if obesity interventions took the intangible costs of obesity into account, the economic benefits would be considerably larger.