By: Danielle Ulman

Here’s something to chew on as we enter the holiday-food binge: Maryland is among six states where more than half of all residents will be obese by 2018. That’s according to a new report based on findings from Emory University health care economist Ken Thorpe, who heads up the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.

No pun intended, but that’s huge.

Thorpe finds that if trends continue, then 43 percent of American adults, or 103 million people, will be obese, and the costs associated with obesity would quadruple to $344 billion in 2018. But he says that the U.S. can save $200 billion if obesity levels hold steady at 31.3 percent.

With all the talk in Washington about cutting health care costs, it sounds like obesity should be a big target for Congress.

If Thorpe’s predictions are correct, 52.1 percent of Maryland adults will be obese in 2018, with related health care costs of $7.9 billion. In 2008, 31.2 percent of the state’s adults were obese and $1.4 billion in related costs were spent.

People that have body mass indexes above 30 are considered obese. (Go here to calculate your BMI).

Oklahoma is projected to be the worst off in 2018, with 56.1 percent of adults falling into the obese category. Ohio would have the highest related costs at $16.2 billion. (Oklahoma has 3.6 million residents compared to Ohio’s 11.5 million).

Which state would fare the best? Colorado, known as the leanest state in the nation, would have the fewest adults who are obese at 29.8 percent, but Connecticut would have the lowest associated costs at $2.9 billion. (Colorado has 4.9 million residents compared to Connecticut’s 3.5 million).

Thorpe doesn’t offer much in the way of advice on how to stop obesity levels from increasing in his report — he briefly mentions that including calorie and fat count on restaurant menus has the potential to cut obesity growth in half and that taxing high-calorie sodas can help.

But in a piece on the Huffington Post, he identifies four ways to attack the issue:

1. Convince Americans that obesity is a serious medical condition that increases other health risks (diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease), not a lifestyle choice.
2. Make sure the stigma attached to obesity doesn’t overshadow the need to combat it.
3. Get employers invested in wellness.
4. Reconfigure health care system to allow docs to treat obesity as a preventable health condition.

If none of those options work out, looks like The Biggest Loser might have to start accepting more contestants.