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A study on the prevalence
of obesity by occupation found nearly half the cops, firefighters and security
guards in the United States are obese. Economists, scientists and psychologists
scored the lowest rates of obesity, RT.com reports.
US Law enforcement
personnel scored 40.7 percent on the American Journal of Preventive Medicine’s
report for highest obesity rates in professions. Other jobs with high obesity
rates were social workers, home health aides, truckers and garbage collectors
ranging between 32 to 35 percent.
The study said the
average American worker scored 27.7 percent. On the other side of the obesity
scale, professions with low obesity rates are athletes, actors, reporters,
economists and scientists.
The report comes as
American companies have started to rethink policies and consider what they can
do to help reduce obesity rates for one third of US adults that make up many of
their employees.
For employers,
encouraging employees to lose weight is a delicate proposition that requires
tact in approach, but the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale
University says doing so would save them nine percent of money spent on
healthcare and lost in productivity due to sick time.
About 71 percent of employers
representing 600,000 workers said that overcoming stigma and embarrassment
represented the biggest hurdle to an effective corporate weight-loss program,
according to an October survey from the Northeast Business Group on Health
cited by the Wall Street Journal.
To date, companies
provide healthy snack vending machines and gym discounts, but they are increasingly
looking towards mental-health counseling and fitness trackers. They’re also
considering covering weight-loss surgeries and drugs, and pilot nutrition and
exercise programs.
An example of this type
of innovation was carried out at the Bangor, Maine location of L.L. Bean Inc.,
where the company determined through biometric screenings that nearly 85
percent of employees at its call center were overweight or obese.
The company enrolled 24
employees in a yearlong pilot program of nutrition, exercise and mental health
counseling, provided during work hours. After a year, participants lost 15
pounds, on average. The success of the program was then replicated at other
locations.
Susan Tufts, the manager
of L.L. Bean’s occupational health and wellness, told the Journal the numbers
were too small to discern any effect on the company’s overall health costs.
But she added, “People
who are overweight are so judged, and you just don’t know what they’re dealing
with or what other issues they have.”
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