In my last blog I talked about how obesity starves your company’s bottom line.  But I also wonder how you take a population of people who are wired differently than normal weight people and convince them to make a change?  People like to make their own choices, even if they are bad ones. Obese Americans know that excess weight reduces their lifespan by about 2.5 years, yet obesity rates continue to rise.

Let’s compare this to another lifestyle issue: smoking.  Why has the rate of smoking in America been dropping steadily?  Thanks to heavy taxation, it’s now extremely expensive to buy cigarettes.  Unfortunately, sugary, fatty junk foods are much cheaper than wholesome, green healthy foods.  

Our western diet, and the diseases associated with it, is big business.  More revenue is generated by the prescription drugs that treat the issues that are often associated with obesity than the revenue saved by raising your company’s “healthy employee bar”.  According to the New York Times, we spend $147 billion dollars to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and many hundreds of billions a year on cardiovascular disease. 

So what’s the answer?  It’s obviously a multi-layered issue that’s going to take some special attention to speak to our obese population in a way that will be heard.  Therapy, nutritional advice, and counseling all help.  But we all, as Americans, are paying for this problem, and we all have a lot of work to do.