obesity

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenged our country with a national health objective called “Healthy People 2010”.  The goal was to reduce obesity to 15% of the entire population for each of the 50 states.

Results were bleak: not one state in the country was able to meet the challenge.  Mississippi weighed in heaviest at 34.4%.  Only two states, Colorado and Washington D.C., had rates below 20%.  Even bleaker, the results were self-reported which has shown that participants typically overstate their height and understate their weight.

The report says that the price tag on our collective obesity issue has reached a hefty $147 billion dollars a year.  The director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Thomas Frieden, noted that not only did every state fail to reach their target, but that nationwide “obesity rates have doubled in adults and tripled in children” over the past few decades.

Fearsome numbers to say the least, and they draw a bright red line from your company to corporate health promotion.  Why?  Increased national obesity means increased death and illness from related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Any company that offers health insurance as a health benefit is directly affected by that $147 billion price tag.

There are numerous benefits of corporate wellness, including providing on-site foot soldiers in the war against obesity that know how to produce sophisticated, effective programs, results, and education.  Workplace wellness boosts employee morale, reduces stress and directly influences your company’s retention and talent pool.

It’s a war you need to win.  Arm your company accordingly.

According to the CDC and the Surgeon General’s report, millions of Americans have diseases that could have been entirely prevented with regular physical exercise. The numbers are overwhelming: 13.5 Americans have coronary heart disease, 8 million Americans have adult onset diabetes, 95,000 of us are diagnosed with colon cancer every year, and about 1.5 million people experience a heart attack in a year.

One of the most effective ways for your employees to lose weight is to practice portion control.

Obesity is a nationwide epidemic.  Type II Diabetes is rampant among our children.  According to the CDC, 1 in 3 children born in the United States will become diabetic.  A smart company knows it’s not enough to focus on the individual employee; we need to empower them to take what they learn about wellness at work home to their families.  There are some meaningful changes that will make tremendous improvements in the culture of health in your employees’ h

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.

According to the Director of the C.D.C, Thomas Frieden: “Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they’re getting worse rapidly.”  This statement is backed up by numbers published in a study in the journal Health Affairs.