From Men’s Health:
Your being in shape could be worth a cool $60,000. According to an Ohio State University analysis, obese people have a lower net worth than slimmer counterparts. OSU researcher Jay L. Zagorsky found that for whites at least, there was a very strong correlation between total net worth and body mass index, or BMI.
In one 2000 sampling, whites with a BMI of 24 – within “normal” range – were worth $100,000, while those with a BMI of 42 – obese – were worth only $40,000. (For unknown reasons, the health and net wealth link did not seem to apply to African-Americans). And these figures don’t take into account the whopping cost of assorted medical events associated with being sedentary: $50,000 and up for heart bypass surgery; an annual, average, per patient cost of $10,000 associated with Type 2 diabetes (as a result of heart disease, eye damage, stroke, kidney disease, and amputation).
