Growing as fast at the heated debates about President Obama’s health care proposal are American’s waistlines.

Warnings that overeating and a sedentary lifestyle can lead to chronic diseases and conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and some cancers, have gone unheeded by the public.

What should grab everyone’s attention is that obesity has become a huge contributor to this nation’s rising medical costs.

Just-released data show how very expensive not taking proper care of our bodies has become.

According to research by North Carolina based RTI International, two-thirds of all Americans are either overweight or obese, and the average American is 23 pounds overweight.

Providing medical treatment for an obese person averages $1,400 more a year compared with someone of normal weight. As a result, the research found, overall obesity-related health spending reached $147 billion last year, double what it was nearly a decade ago.

Closer to home, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) reports that 66% of Texas adults are overweight or obese. If the current trend continues, 30 million or 75 percent of Texas adults might be overweight or obese by the year 2040 and the cost to Texas could quadruple from $10.5 billion today to as much as $39 billion by 2040.

DSHS also states that if Texas were to invest $10 per person per year in proven community based programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition and prevent tobacco use; our state could save $1 billion annually within five years through reductions in health hare spending. – A return of $4.70 for every $1.

Obesity has grown into a public-health crisis that should not escape lawmakers’ attention as Congress grapples over a healthcare-reform bill. As the RTI International study concluded: Real healthcare savings “are more likely to be achieved though reforms that reduce the prevalence of obesity and related risk factors, including poor diet and inactivity.”

There’s no mystery as to why more and more Americans are becoming obese. Americans of all ages are eating more fast food, drinking more sugar-laden sodas and getting too little exercise. We sit far too much in front of the TV and drive when we could easily walk to our destination.

According to the DSHS Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 28 percent of Texas adults report spending 4 or more hours on a typical day sitting and watching TV, videos or using a computer outside of work.

Public-education efforts aimed at preventing the medical consequences of obesity by urging Americans to eat more sensibly and to get more exercise have produced mixed results. As have removing sodas from schools and providing healthier lunches for children.

There is no magic formula as Americans continue to battle the size of their waistlines and the cost associated with getting fatter. It’s just simply a matter of Americans taking their health seriously.

Armand Nardi is the publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register. He can be contacted at: anardi@ntin.net.