Every individual knows that obesity is bad for their health, but it is not solely a personal problem. How many of you know that obesity has concrete effect on the economic costs of a company? Although the compensation plans change from state to state but overall it is giving alarm among the employers to find a solution.
Relation Between Obesity and Workers Compensation
- For Americans, BMI value between 18 to 25 is considered normal, between 25 to 30 it is overweight, and above 30 will be considered as obese.
- According to NCCI (National Council of Compensation Insurance), more than 30 percent of the men and 34 percent of women working in the United States are obese.
- Most of the obese patients are lazy and do not do their work carefully, leading to workplace injuries
- Obesity increases the risk of mortality, type 2 diabetes and heart diseases resulting in poor quality of work.
- Morbidly obese (BMI value above 40) people have higher chances of getting injured at work.
Facts of Workers Compensation and Obesity
According to the analysis done by the Duke University Medical Center, obese workers when compared to non-obese workers have
- double work compensation claims
- medical bill seven times higher for their claims
- lost ten times more working days because of work illness and work injuries
Suggestions
Given the strong facts between obesity and workers compensation costs, employers should give a higher priority for maintaining healthy weight among the employees.
There are some suggestions given by the Duke University Medical Center and the National Council of Compensation Insurance for increasing health standards of the employees
- Seminars on health and safety
- Workshops to teach the proper techniques on how to work
- Work-based programs that are designed to target physical activity and healthy eating are heavily recommended.
- Evaluations should be done as part of each strategy and make modification as required.
- Duke has many more programs depending on the work place, to encourage the employees for adopting healthy lifestyle and occupational safety for reducing the risk of injury.
