Abstracts by key term: Generalized Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (GCEA)
The number of people in Germany who suffer from obesity - i.e. have a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 kg/m2 - has been increasing continuously for years. Almost a quarter of the adult population now suffers from obesity (Mensink et al. 2013). Obesity is defined as an excessive increase in body fat. The body mass index (BMI) is used to assess whether obesity is present. One speaks of obesity when the BMI is at least 30 kg/m². The growing number of people who are overweight - sometimes significantly - is widely recognized as one of the greatest challenges for the health systems of industrialized countries. With regard to Germany, Konnopka and colleagues (2009) estimated the direct and indirect costs of overweight and obesity in 2002 at a total of 9.87 billion euros. In a recently published update of this study for 2008, medical costs of 16.80 billion euros (12.24 billion of which were only for obesity) were estimated (Lehnert et al. 2015).