CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It's no secret that obesity is a growing problem in America, but it's especially a problem for people already obese. Our Christy Feig has details of a new study from the archives of internal medicine.</s>CHRISTY FEIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eating more and exercising less is widening the waistlines across America. But a new study shows it's the Americans with the most to lose who are also growing the fastest.</s>ROLAND STURM, RAND: The people who are 100 pounds or more overweight, so the clinically severe obesity, that has not just doubled in the last 16 years, it has quadrupled.</s>FEIG: Those Americans who are just 20 to 30 pounds overweight are at increased risk for hypertension, heart disease and diabetes.</s>STURM: If you are 100 pounds overweight, it's not just an increase your risk, you are going to get diabetes, you are going to have hypertension and knee problems and not by the time you are 60, but in your 40s.</s>FEIG: In fact, health experts say diabetes is now a public health crisis in America.</s>TOMMY THOMPSON, HHS SECRETARY: If we continue to go the way we're doing in America, overeating and not exercising, it will be one out of three Americans come down with it.</s>FEIG: Those health problems drive up health care costs. But the researchers say there are other costs. Doctors, for example, need bigger exam tables, hospitals need lifts just to put some patients in bed.</s>STURM: In many cases, it's really not possible. Once you hit 400 pounds, two or three nurses just will not be able to provide adequate care here.</s>FEIG: And those costs, experts say, will most likely be passed on to consumers. In Washington, I'm Christy Feig.
Big Concerns: Growing Obesity Problem