OBJECTIVES: As a global public health concern, obesity and overweight became increasingly prevalent and also positively correlated with a variety of chronic diseases, consequently posing a heavy burden on health care expenditure and national economy in China. This systematic review aimed to assess the annual medical costs attributable to obesity and overweight as well as the resulting impact on China’s GDP.

METHODS: A comprehensive literature review of economic burden of obesity and overweight in China was conducted. PubMed, CNKI and Wan Fang were searched through to 30^th April 2022.

RESULTS: Literature about the annual medical cost and GDP impacts caused by obesity and overweight in China were included in this study. Cost data were converted to US dollars using the 2021 exchange rate (1 USD = 6.45 RMB).The average annual medical costs attributable to obesity and overweight are estimated to be $3.775 billion, $14.072 billion, $52.7 per capital in 2000-2009, 2010 and 2015, accounting for 2.46%, 4.5% and 7.8% of China national health expenditure, respectively. In the future, a predicted medical cost of $61 billion would be attributed to obesity and overweight in China by 2030. Comprehensively considering the impacts on life expectancy, health expenditure in terms of productivity, obesity and overweight were predicted to result in the annual average loss of 2.7% of China GDP in 2020-2050.

CONCLUSIONS: The economic burden of obesity and overweight kept increasing in the past decades, indicating that the effective prevention and control of obesity can slow the rapid growth of health care expenditure and reduce the GDP loss in China.