Economic Effects of Obesity in Children: Annotated Bibliography

Ling, Jiying, et al. "Economic burden of childhood overweight and obesity: A systematic review and meta‐analysis." Obesity Reviews 24.2 (2023): e13535.

The authors aimed to explore three areas in which cost increase was related to child obesity; medical costs, non-hospital and physician visit costs, and medication costs. The cost of hospital visitation increases with obese children compared to healthy children. In the United States, child obesity is estimated to take more than one percent of the total healthcare expenditure. Public health insurances also end up paying a lot for obese patients and cost the country economically. There is an increase in non-hospital care that is attributed to overweight children. Many patients prefer to be treated at home, according to Ling, the expenditure of overweight children in non-hospital services is estimated to be 11 billion globally and therefore healthcare providers focus on prevention and treatment. Overweight children are more likely to use prescribed medication compared to healthy children especially due to respiratory conditions. The use of medication causes increased household medication costs.

Segal, Alexa Blair, et al. "The impact of childhood obesity on human capital in high‐income countries: a systematic review." Obesity Reviews 22.1 (2021): e13104.

The authors describes how being overweight as a child directly affects education attainment, especially at the late age of 12 and it was found to be negative. The discrimination of obese children leads to loss of self-esteem and psychological problems that need to be addressed by physicians and this further increases economic costs as the services need to be paid for. Segal, Alexa Blair, et al also affirms that education attainment in children directly affects unemployment in adulthood, and unemployment directly relates to a poor economy as there is low productivity. The author further discusses how obesity affects labor outcomes. Those who have childhood obesity get penalties in wages and this is severe since they are being punished for their childhood lifestyle. The study further shows how child obesity causes unemployment as those with early childhood problems face unemployment. In general educational attainment and lowered labor outcomes eventually cause reduced resources and hence negative economic outcomes

Okunogbe, Adeyemi, et al. "Economic impacts of overweight and obesity: current and future estimates for eight countries." BMJ Global Health 6.10 (2021): e006351.

The article illustrates how the prevalence of child obesity causes an increase in obesity-related noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Since obesity is a chronic disease, it impacts individuals, nations, and even the whole world as health costs are incurred during the treatment of obesity-attributed diseases. Another indirect cost of obesity is transportation costs and enormous time used traveling to the hospital rather than improving the economy. This mostly affects outpatients who have regular visits to the hospital as they incur the costs every time they go to the hospital. Patients with obesity are highly charged for hospital care and also have longer hospital stays which end up accruing large amounts of capital. This paper also shows how future contribution to the economy is lost through premature deaths. Some of the obesity-attributed diseases like cancer may be detected late making it hard to save the patients. Mortality in children means a loss in potential future economy developers and advancers.