America's Biggest Fiscal Problem: The Fat Are Getting Fatter

Much of U.S. politics focuses on the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. But does anyone care that the fat are getting fatter?

The U.S. adult obesity rate so far this year is on pace to surpass all annual average obesity rates since Gallup-Healthways began tracking it five years ago.

Health costs are going to bankrupt us. At the current annual 6% growth rate, our total healthcare bill will go from $2.5 trillion per year -- which it is now -- to almost exactly $4.5 trillion in 10 years. If you add the stubs of the increases over the 10-year period, above the running $2.5 trillion our debt-burdened nation can't afford, it totals a staggering $10 trillion.

To put this in perspective, the sum of our coming healthcare costs are three times the size of the subprime meltdown that brought America and the world to its knees. While we survived the subprime mess, healthcare costs will honestly break the nation.

Things look even worse when you compare America's per person healthcare spending to comparable societies. We spend more than $8,000 annually per person, where Canada and Germany each spends roughly $4,500 per person, and the United Kingdom spends about $3,500, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development -- and residents of those countries all live longer.

So is our American healthcare system superior? You tell me.

Americans obviously understand that this is a huge problem. Nearly a quarter of us say cost is the most urgent health problem facing the U.S., surpassing healthcare access for the first time since 2006. Obesity remains the No. 1 health condition named.

Keep in mind that all of the hoopla about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, has little to do with reducing the bloated and growing $2.5 trillion expense. Obamacare attempts to address the insurance issue -- who pays for what -- but it doesn't go after the core problem: Americans are too fat and unhealthy, and the vast majority of our health problems are preventable.

That's right -- the Centers for Disease Control concluded a few years ago that of all of America's chronic health problems, a whopping 70%, are preventable. And what is the common thread among these chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease? Being obese puts people at higher risk for developing all of them.

Rather than go on and on about whether the ACA website works or not, or who wins and loses politically in 2014 and 2016 because of a disastrous rollout, shouldn't the media be trumpeting this headline: 70% of Health Problems in America Are Preventable?

I just figured the overall weight of Americans, and it's right at about 56 billion pounds if I assume 180 pounds per person. As a nation, in my view if we collectively lost about 10 billion pounds of excess weight, we might reduce our healthcare costs by a third. And we wouldn't need all of these wasted political conversations, because we could balance the budget. Even better, the fix would be free -- it wouldn't require a new law, sequestration, or a shutdown.

That's because the real fix doesn't lie within political battles over insurance coverage. It lies within a sudden new culture of American fitness -- and that begins with eating less and exercising more.