Obesity epidemic costs EU €59 billion a year

Obesity is draining around €59 billion a year from EU member states' pockets in direct health care costs, but the overall economic impact could be as high as €118 to €236 billion, with rising childhood obesity auguring badly for the future.

The startling €59 billion figure - three times the size of Bulgaria's GDP and well over Brussels' €43 billion a year Common Agricultural Policy budget - is based on a May 2006 European Commission estimate that obesity costs the EU an average of 7 per...