Contingencies Online - January/February 2013

The Burden of Obesity on Workforce Wellness

As U.S. workers get heavier,
so does their impact on
employer-based health care
and workers’ compensation

In 1986, director ron Howard released tHe movie Gung Ho, a comedy about efforts by the foreman of an American auto manufacturing plant to save the jobs of autoworkers in Hadleyville, Pa. Foreman Hunt Stevenson, played by Michael Keaton, persuades Tokyo-based Assan Motors Corp. to reopen the plant. Although the journey isn’t easy, the Assan Motors leadership team and the Hadleyville autoworkers eventually come together to produce an amazing 15,000 cars in a single month.

Inspiring story. But what stood out to us was the scene in which George Wendt (Norm from the 1980s television show Cheers) refuses to do a single jumping jack and openly mocks the daily calisthenics required by the new owners.

This scene was pretty funny at the time. But 25 years after the movie’s release, organizations across America still struggle to engage their workers on the benefits of personal wellness. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that in 2010 35. 7 percent of Americans age 20 and older were obese (a figure that potentially could rise to 42 percent by 2030), America is reaching a tipping point in workforce wellness.

programs.

The Cost of obesity

America’s epidemic rates of obesity are burdening employers with increasing durations of injury, rising medical costs, and expanding lost-time claims in a workforce that has a higher propensity toward multiple co-morbidities. According to the Stanford Hospital and Clinics, obesity-related conditions cost over $150 billion each year and cause an estimated 300,000 premature deaths in the United States. The health effects associated with obesity include, but are not limited to, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, joint problems including osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, cancer, metabolic syndrome (a combination of medical disorders that, when occurring together, increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes), and psychosocial effects.

A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Trust for America’s Health, F as in Fat: How obesity Threatens America’s Future 2012, further accentuates the challenges facing America. The report notes that over the next 20 years:

■ ■ Obesity rates for adults could reach or exceed 44 percent in every state and exceed 60 percent in 13 states;

■ ■ The number of new cases of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, hypertension, and arthritis could increase 10 times between 2010 and 2020—and double again by 2030;