Obesity leads to double the amount of compensation claims...

A new research study has made very clear the extent that being obese and having obese employees can affect the efficiency of a business or an organisation. The researchers looked at nearly 12,000 employees of Duke University based in Durham, North Carolina and worked out the medical costs and lost days due to illness from people of different weights.

The results clearly showed that obesity leads to double the amount of compensation claims from workers, and also a much higher medical costs from each of these claims, (in fact seven times more). As for the amount of days taken off due to injury at work or illness, obese people tended to have thirteen times more absent days compared to normal weight workers. The final finding of the researchers was that obese people, in what are classified as high risk jobs, have the biggest medical bills and the biggest economic costs of any workers. Obese workers are far more likely to fall over and hurt themselves when lifting compared to normal weight workers.

People tend to look at obesity from a health point of view and forget that there are serious implications from a financial point of view also. Companies and especially small businesses that rely on their workforce more, are realising that if they employ overweight and obese people the ultimate cost to the business could be considerably higher due to the lost workdays and lower productivity as well as higher medical bills.

At Ukmedix News we have seen other research that shows that employers are very prejudiced against employing people being overweight and obese and that at present there are no laws that prevent employers in the UK from discriminating against obese people. If you need an extra incentive to lose weight you might think that by getting rid of the pounds you could increase your chances of getting work and being promoted.