Reducing childhood and teenage obesity could save more than $7 billion in lifetime costs, but decision makers are prioritising short-term solutions over long-term strategies, researchers say.
One in four Australian children and adolescents are classified as overweight or obese.
Each child or teen who is overweight incurs an excess lifetime cost of about $19,700, while those with obesity incur up to $46,700 compared with their healthy-weight peers, a University of Sydney study has found.
As much as $7.44 billion could be saved over the lifetimes of today's children and teens by reducing their overweight and obesity by five per cent, study lead author Joseph Carrello said.
"We're seeing children develop what's called severe obesity at an earlier age, and this is a concern as the earlier you put on weight, it tends to persist and progress over your life and increases your risk of developing a range of chronic diseases in later life," Mr Carrello said.
The federal government has implemented a 10-year national obesity strategy, with one of the goals to reduce childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity from 25 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030.
Despite being an aspirational goal, Mr Carrello said the one-in-four figure had remained static, evident with less than two per cent of health expenditure invested in prevention.
Faced with competing demands for scarce resources within short-term political cycles, decision makers tend to favour investment in different patient populations with more immediate needs, the study says.
Prevention strategies can include improving active transport, restricting advertising of unhealthy food, sugar and sweet taxes, or school sports vouchers.
"Investing more in prevention, especially during childhood and adolescence, can really change the trajectory for many young people, rather than kicking the can down the road and treating the chronic diseases as they arise," Mr Carrello said.
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