Obesity becoming more common in the workplace
No eating plan stood out in terms of lasting weight loss, researchers noted Credit: HealthDay
Are your employees tending toward fat? Or are they even obese?
There's a good chance they are, according to Dr. Jacqueline Moline, vice president of population health at North Shore-LIJ Health System, Long Island's largest operator of hospitals.
What's this got to do with the cost of doing business? Plenty, said Moline, keynote speaker Tuesday before North Shore-LIJ's Commerce and Industry Council, a volunteer business group that raises funds for health causes. The event was at the North Hills Country Club in Manhasset.
"We are seeing more chronic disease increase in the workplace," Moline said at the breakfast sponsored by TD Bank. "We always think of the medical costs," she added. "But we're not thinking of poor health and how it affects business."
Two basic ways, she said: absenteeism and "presenteeism." Presenteeism, Moline said, is when you're there, but not there, because you're sick and trying to work anyway.
Companies, Moline said, need to start exercise and weight-control programs, place healthier foods in cafeterias and vending machines and encourage stress reduction.
Not enough companies are doing these things, said Jeanine L. Bondi, chairwoman of the council and a Melville-based technology executive. She attributed that to corporate cutbacks.
"There's not been enough attention to this," Bondi said.
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