Obesity in the workplace

Obesity in the workplace

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures related to issue of Obesity in the workplace. Obesity is becoming an increasing health concern worldwide and in developing as well as industrialized nations. Obesity is customarily defined as increased body weight caused by excess accumulation of body fat (adiposity), but because direct measures of the percent of body fat are cumbersome, for broad-based studies such as population surveys, obesity for adults is usually defined using the Body Mass Index (BMI; also known as the Quetelet Index). Obesity is associated with increased risk for many serious health conditions as well as reduced quality of life, discrimination, and social stigma, resulting not only in shorter life span, fewer years of healthy life, and lower quality of life for the obese individual but also increased burden on the healthcare system. For instance, in the United States in 2006, it was estimated that medical costs for obese individuals were $1,429 higher (per person) than for normal-weight individuals and that overall medical costs associated with obesity were $147 billion. For the years 1987-2001, one study found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of increases in medical costs was associated with diseases related to obesity (Wehung, 2009). In the next section, the author will examine cost and effect of obesity in the workplace.

Discussion & Analysis

Being behind a desk is something that weighs heavily on workers, and that the longer a person spends on his desk is more likely to be overweight. Obesity is a symptom of unhealthy diets and physical inactivity, and the workplace is the key site to discuss the obesity epidemic not only in United States but also in other parts of the world. The prevalence of obesity is higher among older workers. In 2011, 21% were obese, against 17% in 1994-1995. Profile is the same for both sexes; the prevalence is nevertheless higher in men (Saguy, 2008).

The main cause of overweight and obesity for most people is an energy imbalance: they consume more calories than they expend in physical activity. Changes in daily life are considered by many scholars to play an important role in global increases in the number of people who are overweight and obese (Cardello, 2009). The major factors identified are (1) changes in diet toward foods away from traditional plant-based foods that are high in fiber and micronutrients (such as vitamins and minerals) toward processed foods and animal products that are high in calories, often from sugar and fat; and (2) decreased physical activity due to the changing demands of the workplace, increasing urbanization, and a shift to motorized rather than human-powered transportation (e.g., driving a car or riding a bus rather than walking or riding a bicycle). The pervasiveness of these changes worldwide is one reason that the problem of obesity has remained fairly intractable despite many government and private programs that have attempted to reverse the trend toward increasing ...