The Costs of Weight on Business

Paying through the nose to feed the fat through their mouths.

"Epidemic or not, the rate of obesity in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent decades. Those extra pounds can be as bad for an employer's bottom line as they are for a person's health and waistline."

For example:

"Over the past decade, the extra weight Americans are carrying has weighed heavily on the airline industry alone. According to a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (via Newswire), the increase in the average passenger's weight required airlines to use an extra 350 million gallons of fuel at a cost of $275 million each year — and that was based on prices in 2000, when jet fuel cost 79 cents per gallon, compared to roughly $1.80 in February 2007."

And:

"Last year, a Duke University Medical Center study of the health records of more than 11,000 university employees found that obese workers filed twice the number of workers' compensation claims, had seven times higher medical costs from those claims and lost 13 times more days of work from work injury or work illness than other workers. The analysis, published in April 2007's Archives of Internal Medicine, covered a diverse group of workers, such as administrative assistants, groundskeepers, nurses and professors."

Then there's:

"Among American workers participating in corporate health and wellness assessments, obese workers had a substantially higher prevalence of metabolic, circulatory, musculoskeletal and respiratory disorders. In other words, overweight and obese workers are more at risk for many preventable — and costly — diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis and stroke.

The average medical claims costs per 100 employees were $51,019 for the obese and just $7,503 for the non-obese, according to the Duke University analysis.

Today, obese employees cost U.S. private employers an estimated $45 billion annually in medical expenditures and work loss, The Conference Board claims. Obesity is associated with a 36 percent increase in spending on health-care services, according to the research firm. If accurate, that is more than smoking or problem drinking."

But, despite all this, the wrong-headed approaches remain:

"The Conference Board says wellness programs to address the obesity issue can get return on investment (ROI) of up to $5 per $1 invested. (The Wellness Council of America estimates that a $1 investment in a wellness program saves $3 in health care costs.)"

No way, as long as the failed approaches of the past are the policies of today.

And they are.

Too, too bad.

Stop catering to the calorically irresponsible.