Obesity Cost Calculator

Obesity is increasingly affecting workers all over the world. Many organizations realize the need to assess the costs of obesity as it relates to their bottom line. Forward thinking organizations are looking for ways to quantify the magnitude of this challenge and to assess the options and benefits of providing interventions and incentives to better manage the health of their employees.

CDC's Obesity Cost Calculator uses input data provided by human resources or benefits personnel to calculate an estimate of the costs to an organization that are obesity related and to compare the costs and benefits of user-defined interventions targeted at reducing obesity.  More specifically, the Obesity Cost Calculator:

Estimates the costs of obesity based on characteristics of your company. These include costs for medical expenditures and the dollar value of increased absenteeism resulting from obesity.  Costs are estimated separately for four groups based on Body Mass Index (BMI); measured as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared):¹⁹⁴

• Overweight (BMI 25-29.9)
• Obese 1 (BMI 30-34.9)
• Obese 2 (BMI 35-39.9)
• Obese 3 (BMI > 40)

Provides a module to assess:

• Expected savings of interventions to reduce obesity,
• Potential reductions in medical costs and work loss resulting from  interventions, and
• The number of years before a break-even period is reached.

Each is estimated under several user-driven scenarios concerning the expected costs and savings resulting from the intervention.

Before you begin using the cost calculator, you will need to gather specific information about your company.  You can use the Obesity Cost Calculator Worksheet (DOC-492k) to collect this information to better approximate the costs of obesity to your organization.  To obtain better estimates for your company, you will need to know the average hourly wages, percent of employees receiving health benefits, and the body mass index (BMI) of your employees.  If you do not have some of this data for your company, the Obesity Cost Calculator will provide default values from nationally representative datasets to calculate the cost estimates. 

The cost of obesity must be calculated before determining your return on investment (ROI).  You will need to decide the appropriate inputs for this calculation based on your budgeted costs for the intervention, anticipated participation rates, employee co-payments, annual work days missed (current and anticipated post-intervention rates), and expected weight loss of employees.

Ready? Calculate Cost of Obesity

Also in This Section

• Information About Estimations
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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