Economic costs of both overweight and obesity among Chinese urban and rural residents, in 2010

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Using the latest available data to estimate the direct economic burden of overweight and obesity in China. 'Cost-of-illness' approach was used to calculate the costs of five major non-communicable diseases(NCDs)which were associated with overweight and obesity. National data from the 2010 Chinese Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey and the 2008 National Health Service Survey were used to compute the Population Attributable Risks(PARs) of overweight and obesity for each major NCDs. Costs specific to overweight and obesity were obtained by multiplying costs of each disease by the PARs for each NCD. In 2010, overweight and obesity were imposing a substantial economic burden on China, responsible for 42.9% of the medical and non-medical yearly costs of the major NCDs in China, with the amount as 90.768 billion RMB. The economic costs of overweight and obesity increased over the years, accounting for 4.5% of the national health expenditure. The high economic burden of overweight and obesity implied the need to develop and implement policies that addressing the behavior-related risk factors and the obese-genic environment, in order to curb the NCDs epidemic in China.