Obese Employees Cost Companies More

Maintaining a normal body weight may no longer be just a matter of personal health. New research shows that it pays for companies to promote healthy lifestyle choices among its employees. According to a recent study out of Duke University Medical Center, obese employees cost companies more money than their fit counterparts—in lost workdays, higher medical costs, and more workers' compensation claims.

In conducting the study, researchers looked at the records of 11,728 employees of Duke University who received health risk appraisals between 1997 and 2004 to determine if there was a relationship between body mass index and the rate of workers' compensations claims (body mass index, or BMI, takes into account a person's height and weight and is considered the most accurate indicator of obesity). The researchers found that obese workers filed twice as many workers' compensations claims as workers who fell within the recommended BMI range.

Obese workers averaged 11.65 claims per 100 workers, compared to 5.8 claims per 100 for non-obese employees. As a result, obese employees had seven times higher medical costs, for an average of $51,019 per 100 employees. The most common causes of injury among obese workers were falls, slips, and attempts to lift something.
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