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BY TRACY PFEIFFER

ANCHOR MOLLY HULSEY

You're watching multisource health news analysis from Newsy.

A series of studies in the British journal The Lancet has predicted-- current global obesity rates are set to wreak havoc on government infrastructure and economies-- if we don’t do something about it, now.

The papers suggest-- in the next two decade, half of the US population will become obese. And the UK will add 11 million more people to its obesity epidemic.

USA Today breaks down how these numbers-- relate to pocketbooks. (Video: ABC)

“In the United States, the cost of treating obesity-related diseases ... would increase $66 billion per year by 2030... In the U.K., the increase would be £2 billion per year ($3.2 billion)... Spending specifically on obesity disorders will jump 25 percent per year...”

An analyst for Bloomberg says-- the studies suggest the obesity epidemic is becoming as much of an economic issue-- as a public health crisis.

SHANNON PETTYPIECE, BLOOMBERG: “It poses a threat, epidemiologists and health experts say, of really crushing our health care system. We don’t have the infrastructure to handle all the diseases that will come along with that big of a population being obese. …If we went back to the weight we were in 1991, it would save us a trillion dollars.”

And The New York Times notes, it’s not just happening in the West.

The researchers found-- global obesity rates have doubled in the past 30 years.

“People in the Pacific Islands, like American Samoa, are the heaviest... In developed countries, Americans are the fattest and Japanese are the slimmest.... Though richer countries did a better job of keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels under control ... people almost everywhere were putting on weight...”

So what’s the answer? The researchers suggests governments act-- and fast.

One idea is for a tax on unhealthy foods-- much like a cigarette tax.

But UK health minister Anne Milton tells the BBC-- it’s much more complex than that.

ANNE MILTON, PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH: “Smoking is different. We don’t want people to smoke at all. People do have to eat. And at the end of the day, government alone cannot tax their way out of this problem. It is about personal responsibility. …We are working with industries through the responsibility deal. Actually, we’ve got pledges on reducing salts, on reducing trans fats.”

Finally-- the LA Times’ Booster Shots blog says-- there’s kind of an upside to the report.

And that is-- it doesn’t take much to start reversing the trend.

“Let's say people started watching what they ate and maybe exercised a little, enough so that the population overall dropped its body mass index by 1%--that's roughly two pounds for a 200-pound adult. That could prevent 2 million to 2.4 million cases of diabetes, 73,000 to 127,000 cases of cancer and 1.4 million to 1.7 million cases of heart disease and stroke.”

The researchers note-- some of the obesity rates and related illnesses can be attributed to quote- “an aging population.”

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Transcript by Newsy