Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England warned in September 2014 of the need to get serious about obesity or bankrupt the NHS (with the cost of treating the health consequences of obesity escalating as the prevalence of obesity spreads in the population):

Obesity is the new smoking, and it represents a slow-motion car crash in terms of avoidable illness and rising health care costs... If as a nation we keep piling on the pounds around the waistline, we’ll be piling on the pounds in terms of future taxes needed just to keep the NHS afloat. [13]

The McKinsey Global Institute analysis [11] found that obesity generated an economic loss in the UK of more than $70 billion a year in 2012, or 3.0 percent of GDP (see below); the second biggest impact – within the analysis as defined (covering the loss of productive life, direct health-care costs, and investment to mitigate the cost) – of 14 human generated burdens:

Source: McKinsey Global Institute

A 2010 review by the National Obesity Observatory of previous economic analyses of the burden of obesity in the UK noted: ^[2]

• Estimates of the direct NHS costs of treating overweight and obesity, and related morbidity in England have ranged  from £479.3m in 1998 [4] to £4.2bn in 2007. [1] 

• Estimates of the indirect costs (those costs arising from the impact of obesity on the wider economy such as loss of productivity) from these studies ranged between £2.6bn [4] and £15.8 billion.[1] Modelled projections suggest that indirect costs could be as much as £27bn by 2015. In 2006/07, obesity and obesity-related illness was estimated to have cost £148 million in inpatient stays in England. [10]

 Source: Foresight Report, 2007

• Premature deaths attributable to obesity lead to the annual loss of around 45,000 years of working life. Sickness absence attributable to obesity is estimated at between 15.5 million and 16 million days per year.Obese people are much less likely to be in employment than those of healthy weight, with associated welfare costs estimated at between £1 billion and £6 billion. The total cost to the economy of being overweight or obese has been estimated as some £16 billion in 2007, rising to £50 billion per year by 2050 if left unchecked.​

• It is estimated that 23% of spending on all drugs is attributable to overweight and obesity. The minimum annual cost of any drug prescriptions at BMI 20 rose from £50.71 for men and £62.59 for women by £5.27 and £4.20, respectively, for each unit increase in BMI to a BMI of 25.3 Increases for each BMI unit were greater to BMI 30, and greater still, £8.27 (men) and £4.95 (women), to BMI 40.

 Source: Foresight Report, 2007