Give those fat Britons a free gastric band! We can't afford not to It's only a week since those number-crunchers at McKinsey and Company declared that obesity is a greater burden on Britain's economy than armed violence, war and terrorism. It costs the country a hefty £47bn a year, which really puts the £30bn deficit in the shade. Only smoking has a bigger economic impact on the UK. It recommended 44 interventions which would ensure 20 per cent of overweight or obese people achieve a normal weight within five to ten years, saving the NHS £766m a year. At the moment, the government spends £638m a year on obesity prevention, but the taxpayer coughs up £6bn annually on medical conditions related to obesity, and a further £10bn on diabetes. OK, so a gastric band is just one weapon in the battle of the bulge. McKinsey recommends portion control, parental education, healthy meals at schools and workplaces, and more physical activity. Even those who have had bariatric surgery admit that more needs to be done to prevent people getting to the point where they need to go under the knife. The blogger Emma Burnell was morbidly obese until she had a gastric sleeve fitted. She made a powerful case on Channel 4 News for the transformative effect of such surgery, crediting it with saving her life. Before it, she says she was in constant agony, crippled we back pain, and hated herself after running the gauntlet of daily humiliation from strangers. She insists she'd tried every diet going but only ever managed to lose three stone. The op itself - which shrunk her stomach to the size of a lemon, so she'd feel full very quickly after eating - was excruciating she says. But now she's active, confident and happy. And she's not going to be costing the NHS anything like as much as she might have done before. The chair of the National Bariatric Surgery Registry, Richard Welbourn, published a study earlier this month revealing that two thirds of patients with type 2 diabetes showed no sign of the disease two years after having bariatric surgery. He's quite clear the medical consequences of obesity threaten to bankrupt the NHS. And the Royal College of Surgeons has backed him up, agreeing that there's "compelling evidence" of the cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery. The issue may not be as simple as saying pile on the pies and the pounds and to hell with the consequences. For many the economics are clear, it might pay to spend that £6,000 now, and save thousands more in years to come.