14 DAY TRIAL // A new study carried out by a Duke University obesity researcher shows that the cost of obesity for full-time employees in the United States has reached the huge amount of $73.1 billion.
This research measured the cost of obesity among full-time workers for each individual, according to 3 factors: employee medical expenses, lost productivity on the job due to health problems (presenteeism), and absence from work (absenteeism).
The results showed that for obese women with a BMI over 40, the per capita costs were as high as $16,900 and for obese men in the same BMI class, the amounts reached $15,500, and these figures were due mainly to presenteeism.
Eric Finkelstein, deputy director for health services and systems research at Duke-National University of Singapore, found that presenteeism represented as much as 56% of the total cost of obesity in women, and 68% in men.
Another concerning fact for employers is that even among people with normal weight, productivity loss because of health problems surpassed that of actual medical costs.
Thanks to the 2006 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the 2008 US National Health and Wellness Survey, presenteeism rates were measured and included the lost time between arriving at work and starting work on days when the employee is not feeling well, as well as the average frequency of losing concentration, repeating a job, working more slowly than usual, feeling fatigued at work, or simply doing nothing at work.
In this study data from individuals from all weight range were considered.
Finkelstein, who is also an associate research professor of global health at the Duke Global Health Institute, said that “much work has already shown the high costs of obesity in medical expenditures and absenteeism, but our findings are the first to measure the incremental costs of presenteeism for obese individuals separately by BMI class and gender among full time employees.
“Given that employers shoulder much of the costs of obesity among employees, these findings point to the need to identify cost-effective strategies that employers can offer to reduce obesity rates and costs for employees and families,” he added.
After combining all obesity-related costs, people with a BMI higher than 35, account for 61% of the total costs, even though they represent only 37% of the obese population.
Marco daCosta DiBonaventura of Kantar Health, and co-author of the study, said that “the disproportionately high per capita and total cost of grade II and grade III obesity is particularly concerning given that these BMI ranges are the fastest-growing subset of the obese population.”
After all these facts, the researchers advise employers not to restrain the costs of “weight management or other wellness programs” before evaluating the medical and productivity costs of obesity.
So if you are an employer concerned by this issue, Finkelstein advises you to promote healthy food in the workplace, support a culture of wellness from the CEO on down and find a way of motivating employees who show clear signs of improving their health by losing weight, who keep a healthy weight, and/or take part in health-realted activities.
This study is actually the first one to assess the overall value of lost job productivity as a result of health problems.
The conclusions were published today in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.