According to the findings of a new study, published online on Monday in the journal Health Affairs, obesity accounts for a large chunk of health care expenditure - with obese Americans spending nearly 42 percent - or $1,429 - more on health care, as compared to their normal-weight compatriots.

The study found that over the past decade or so, obesity spending has increased 9.1 percent from 6.5 percent in 1998. In addition, spending on conditions associated with obesity - like diabetes - has increased twofold in the last decade, with a 37 percent increase between 1998 and 2006.

In 2008, spending on obesity-related conditions was as much as $147 billion, which was 10 percent of all medical spending during the year!

Eric Finkelstein - on of the study's authors and the Director of the North Carolina-based Research Triangle Institute's Public Health Economics Program - said that a large portion of the excess spending by the obese constitutes expenditure on prescription drugs for controlling obesity-related conditions.

Commenting on the study's results - which were presented on Monday at the first Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, held by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the CDC said: "Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they're getting worse rapidly."