A recent study suggests that obese workers negatively impacts profits:
Duke University researchers also found that the fattest workers had 13 times more lost workdays due to work-related injuries and that their medical claims for those injuries were seven times higher .Overweight workers were more likely to have claims involving injuries to the back, wrist, arm, neck, shoulder, hip, knee, and foot than other employees.
The conclusion states that more employers should invest in programs to fight obesity. However, I think that data like this would make it that much harder for the obese to find a job.
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What’s promptly being lost in the media rush is that these findings are based on workers comp claims and therefore have little relevance in the context of many if not most employees.
Yes, it’s probably not a good idea to have a morbidly obese employee working a forklift on your loading dock, but it’s totally irrelevant to an employee in your payroll department.
Agree with kipsquire.
If your job involves sitting at the desk you are not likely to suffer a work-related injury. As far as “sick days” are concerned, they matter a lot less at jobs when you are not paid by the hour and where the emphasis is on work done.
In many engineering/scientific jobs, for example, nobody pays much attention how many days someone takes off. Most of us work from home when we are sick if we are physically able, we simply cannot afford not to do it. Some people work through vacation. Schedules still have to be met regardless, and you are evaluated based on what you accomplished without any regard of how many days you took off. And one of the larger fortune 500 companies I work for doesn’t even limit the number of sickdays, they simply rank people based on they’ve done during the year. Two years of being in the bottom 5-10% and you are gone.
For 20-something years I’ve worked, people taking too many sick days have never been a problem. In spite of our unlimited number of sick days.
Worker’s Comp (particularly the no fault kind) is a haven for fraud (not just for the obese). Any system based on “they told me they were hurt and so they must be” is by design set up to allow for rampant fraud.
~Criminallopath~
Obvious conclusion: don’t hire fat people…ever!
I love it when the media tell me how to think, without leaving it to medical professionals or scientists.
When I start looking to the media for how to think, then I will next go to a desert tortoise to learn how to swim, a ground sloth to learn how to run, and a Hollywood celebrity to learn how to save the planet.
any program a company institutes to fight obesity is going to do jack squat to lower the number of obese people at the work site. if a person wants to lose weight, they will motivate themselves to do so if they can. EVERYBODY knows being overweight is bad for you. another flier on the company billboard isn’t going to make any difference.
unless the program is incentive-based. how about this: your salary goes up 1% for every 1% of your weight that you lose. i’d become anorexic so fast. higher salary, less grocery money = everybody wins (except the already fit people).
The only thing that will stop or slow obesity in this country will be financial incentive.
Insurance companies can help. We can all be weighed and tested for smoking and drugs. Then those with a gym membership and a decent BMI get a reduced monthly rate.
Where can I sign up for private health insurance with this incentive?
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