Business has reason to help workers lose weight
July 23rd, 2007Apart from the corporate responsibility of American companies to contribute and help societies, they should also be involved in tackling the growing obesity problems in the country.
What Americans now call obesity once occurred rarely and was even considered attractive. Poor cultures — like Mauritania, where girls are force-fed — still equate girth with prosperity. Even in the United States, many people see no allure in the anorexics air-brushed onto today’s fashion magazines.
But now, more Americans than ever are obese. Research increasingly shows these pounds translate directly to economic loss. Businesses, it turns out, are among the hardest hit, because they are the country’s primary source of private health insurance.
But businesses are also among the best positioned in our society to ease the national burden.
With corporate involvement, this social problem could be dealt with and be solved before it spreads.