What obesity and palliative care reveal about the economies of health and healthcare

AT FIRST glance, the two fields of obesity and palliative care seem worlds apart. One is associated with lifestyle and excess, the other with decline and end-of-life.

Yet, to a health economist, they share surprising similarities that reveal how society values – and often misprices – health and healthcare.

Neither obesity nor palliative care is a well-defined concept. Obesity is often measured based on body mass index (BMI) – a ratio of weight to height, with specific cut-off points for what defines normal weight, overweight and obese, which interestingly vary by race but not gender. Although reasonable as a screening tool, BMI is an imperfect measure that does not distinguish between fat and muscle mass.