Fat People hurt the economy

If the research in the embedded report is true, one of the best things a person can do, IF OBESE, IS TO LOSE WEIGHT! Productivity will rise!

So not only will you be doing your body and self image a favor you will be contributing to the economy via increased productivity. Let’s face it, fat people, are sick more often and longer than those that are not.

Obesity’s hidden job costs: $73 billion

Productivity drops, sick days go up as BMI rises, new study finds

Stephanie Pappas

Loss of productivity due to obesity costs as much as medical expenditures for the condition, according to a new study that pegs the cost of obesity among full-time workers in the United States at $73.1 billion per year.

Obesity’s hidden costs, the researchers said, stem from the fact that obese people tend to be less productive than normal-weight people while at work — simply accounting for the extra sick days they take misses a big part of the picture.

The study, published Friday in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, took into account medical expenses, sick days and health-related productivity costs associated with obesity. The findings suggest employers could save money by investing in health improvement programs for their employees, the researchers said.

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“Now that we’ve uncovered this sort of hidden cost, I think that it ups the ante for [employers] to think harder about what sort of interventions they want to implement,” study author Eric Finkelstein, deputy director for health services and systems research at Duke University and the National University of Singapore, told LiveScience.

Plenty of studies have linked obesity to health-care costs and lost workdays. But fewer have examined “presenteeism,” or lost performance while at work. Finkelstein and his co-authors used data from a nationally representative survey on medical expenditures (2006 data) combined with data on absenteeism and presenteeism from the internet-based U.S. National Health and Wellness Survey (2008 data). Pregnant and underweight individuals were excluded from the analysis.

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The research was funded by Allergan, Inc., a health-care company that makes LAP-BAND and other devices used in weight-loss surgeries.

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The cost of extra pounds

After controlling for race and ethnicity, income, education levels, insurance coverage, marital status and smoking, the researchers found significant costs of being obese. These costs increased with body mass index (BMI), a measure of height and weight that researchers use to define obesity. (A BMI over 30 is considered obese.)

Presenteeism due to health problems was common in workers regardless of weight, but it doubled with each increase from mild to moderate to extreme obesity. Female employees with BMIs between 30 and 34.9, for example, experienced 6.3 days of lost time per year (while at work), a number that jumped to 22.7 days in women with BMIs over 40. Men in the lower BMI category lost 2.3 days of at-work productivity per year, while men with BMIs over 40 lost 21.9 — three full weeks.

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“As you increase in your BMI, there is just a tremendous increase in the impact of that obesity on work productivity,” said Marco daCosta Di Bonaventura, the director of health economics and outcomes research at Kantar Health (a health-care consulting company) and a co-author of the study.

Overall costs also increased along with BMI. Men with BMIs of 30 to 34.9, the low end of the obese range, cost $1,143 more each per year in medical expenditures, missed workdays and lost productivity at work than normal-weight men. Men with BMIs between 35 and 39.9 cost $2,491 more each, and men with BMIs over 40 cost $6,087 more.

Women showed a similar pattern. Having a BMI between 30 and 34.9 cost $2,524 extra each year, while a BMI between 35 and 39.9 cost $4,112. Each woman with a BMI over 40 cost on average $6,694 more than a normal-weight woman.

Despite the high prevalence of obesity in America, individuals on the 40-and-over side of the BMI-spectrum are relatively rare. According to a 2010 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, about one-third of U.S. adults over age 20 are obese. But only 14.3 percent of American adults have a BMI of 35 or more, and just 5.7 percent have BMIs over 40.

Lost productivity

All told, obesity among full-time workers costs $73.1 billion per year, the researchers estimated. That’s the equivalent of hiring 1.8 million new workers at annual salaries of $42,000, which is what the average American makes each year.

In comparison, a 2010 report by the American Lung Association estimates that the costs of healthcare, premature death and loss of productivity from smoking tally to $301 billion per year. About 23 percent of Americans smoke. A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry estimates that mental illness, which also affects about a quarter of Americans, costs the economy $317 billion every year in lost wages, healthcare costs and disability benefits.

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While 18 percent of the total cost of obesity was because of lost workdays, lost productivity at work due to health troubles contributed 41 percent of the extra cost. That was the same percentage as the additional cost for medical expenditures.

One reason that presenteeism was so much more influential than absenteeism may reflect a tendency by workers to power through illness instead of taking sick leave, Finkelstein said.

“Especially in a bad economy people want to get paid, so they find a way to go into work even if they’re not feeling great,” he said. “I think these results are bearing that out.”

Get some Enerfood or the Amino Acid Balanced Meal Replacement and stop eating junk food and watch the pounds come off!

Lose weight, but gradually

I have to agree with this article for the most part. When you go on a ‘crash diet’ they don’t ever seem to work for keeping weight off long term, at least that is my experience and that of my wife. We find it best to find a diet that works and stick with it over a period of time.

Gradually your eating habits will change and before you know it your diet will become your everyday eating habit.

Why it isn’t always a good thing to lose weight quickly

by Michelle Wilkinson

Losing weight quickly isn’t as important as losing weight at a gradual rate that can be sustained once you reach your goal. You may be able to lose a lot of weight quickly if you go on a diet where you are only ‘allowed’ to eat soup, but what are the chances that you will keep the weight off? When you know you only have to stick to this kind of restrictive diet for a few weeks you somehow manage to find the willpower to follow through with it, but what happens afterwards?

Unfortunately, if you’ve not embraced healthier eating and exercise habits the likelihood is that you will go back to your former way of eating and, thus, regain all the weight you lost. It is therefore a waste of time even bothering to lose weight through dieting, as you’re probably going to find yourself alternating between starving yourself and bingeing on food. Your weight will yo-yo up and down and you will be left feeling miserable every time you put on weight again.

Everyone would like to be able to shift all their excess weight as quickly as possible, since losing weight isn’t easy. You don’t want to have to think about every single calorie that passes your mouth forever, but in the long run you have to get used to calorie counting. Even when you’ve reached a weight you’re happy with you can’t simply let yourself eat whatever you want and as much food as you can, since you won’t be in control of your calorie intake and this could result in weight gain.

When you’re trying to lose weight you have to think about your future plans as well. It is not enough to follow some kind of fad diet for a few weeks before going back to the eating habits that you’re most familiar with, as you will never learn to manage your weight. You have to face up to the fact that if you want to lose weight and remain slim you have to be prepared to embrace healthier eating and exercise habits which you can continue to follow even when you’ve reached your goal.

It obviously requires a great deal of patience to lose weight at a gradual rate, but at least your chances of keeping the weight off increases, which means you won’t have to face the prospect of going on a diet ever again. Losing weight quickly might make you feel good about yourself initially, but you only feel worse when you realise that you can’t seem to keep your weight down.

The EnerFood diet while a very quick diet also cleanses you out very well.

I’m not fat!

The article below points out a very big perception problem, many Americans don’t see themselves as overweight even though they really and truly are! There are so many ways that our minds fool us into thinking incorrectly. I suppose those that are fat would hang out with other fat folks and then start thinking that fat was the new normal…??

WAKE UP AMERICANS…obesity is a huge problem in this country. Gluttony is not a desirable trait. The bible even talks about this and highly suggests that people not indulge.

Many Americans Don’t Even Know They’re Fat

Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll finds 30 percent of those overweight think they’re normal size

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

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HealthDay/ScoutNews LLC

THURSDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) — Many Americans have skewed perceptions when it comes to their weight, often believing they are thinner than they really are, even when the scales are shouting otherwise, a new poll finds.

As part of the Harris Interactive/HealthDay survey, respondents were asked to provide their height and weight, from which pollsters calculated their body-mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height. Respondents were then asked which category of weight they thought they fell into.

Thirty percent of those in the “overweight” class believed they were actually normal size, while 70 percent of those classified as obese felt they were simply overweight. Among the heaviest group, the morbidly obese, almost 60 percent pegged themselves as obese, while another 39 percent considered themselves merely overweight.

These findings may help to explain why overweight and obesity rates in the United States continue to go up, experts say.

“While there are some people who have body images in line with their actual BMI, for many people they are not, and this may be where part of the problem lies,” said Regina Corso, vice president of Harris Poll Solutions. “If they do not recognize the problem or don’t recognize the severity of the problem, they are less likely to do something about it.”

And that means that obesity may be becoming the new norm, raising the specter of increasing rates of health threats such as diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

“I think too many people are unsure of what they should actually weigh,” said Keri Gans, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “For many, they have grown up in a culture were most people are overweight and that is the norm, or they have been surrounded by too many celebrities and fashion in the media and think very thin is the norm.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 34 percent of adults aged 20 and older are obese, and 34 percent are overweight. Among children, 18 percent of teens aged 12 to 19 are obese, 20 percent of children aged 6 to 11 are obese, as are 10 percent of kids aged 2 to 5.

Most respondents to the poll who felt they were heavier than they should be blamed sloth, rather than poor eating habits, for their predicament.

“In the mindset of most Americans, they’re not looking at this as a food problem as much as an exercise problem,” Corso said.

According to the poll, 52 percent of overweight people and 75 percent of both the obese and morbidly obese felt they didn’t exercise enough.

“We’re seeing the couch potato stigma [syndrome],” Corso said. “Three out of five Americans overall are saying they don’t exercise as much as they should.”

Added Gans: “It is sad that 59 percent of people who responded know they should be getting more exercise but yet aren’t. Maybe they set the bar too high and forget that simply walking counts as exercise.”

Food appeared to be a lesser culprit than lack of exercise in people’s minds, with 36 percent of overweight respondents, 48 percent of obese respondents and 27 percent of those morbidly obese feeling they ate more than they “should in general.”

A third of overweight people, 55 percent of obese people and 59 percent of morbidly obese people felt they ate too much of the wrong types of food.

As for weight-loss interventions, the respondents deemed surgery the most effective method, followed by prescription drugs, then drugs and diet-food supplements obtained over-the-counter.

About half felt that procedures such as gastric bypass and stomach stapling were either very or fairly effective in helping people shrink their girth. Faith in these remedies seemed similar, regardless of the respondents’ weight.

“Americans like the quick fix and that’s what they think the surgery is even though there are so many other things” that work, Corso said. “And so many people reverse their own surgery. These numbers are staggering.”

Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, noted that “when [Dr. Everett Coop, surgeon general in the 1980s] wrote ‘Shape Up America,’ he said the biggest health problem facing America was not AIDS, not cancer, it’s obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. Since then … we’ve seen nothing but a rise in obesity despite all of these efforts that have gone on now since the 1980s.”

“The American public knows this but it’s hard and it’s something that they’re not quite ready to do,” Corso added. “This wake-up call still isn’t ringing as loudly as it could.”

The poll included 2,418 adults (aged 18 and over) who were surveyed online between Aug. 17 and 19.

More information

Read more about the poll methodology and findings at Harris Interactive.

To check your BMI, visit the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

SOURCES: Regina Corso, vice president, Harris Poll Solutions, New York City; Keri Gans, R.D., spokeswoman, American Dietetic Association; Mitchell Roslin, M.D., chief of obesity surgery, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City

Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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So grab a carrot or celery stick when you get hungry. Get serious about losing weight and you will not regret it. You will feel better and have more energy to say the least!

New weight loss pills cause liver damage

Warning when even the FDA puts a danger label on a new pill you might want to take notice. Two new drugs for weight loss, Alli and Xenical, were both labeled as can cause Liver Damage.

So why not try Natural Weight loss protocols? Start with some Enerfood from EnerHealth Botanicals. Get some exercise, maybe do some Yoga a couple of times a week. This seems to me to be a much better option than pills that can wreck your liver…what about you?

UPDATE:FDA Requires Liver-Injury Warning On 2 Weight-Loss Drugs

By Jennifer Corbett Dooren

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it is requiring a new warning about liver injury to be placed on the weight-loss drugs Xenical and Alli.

Xenical is a prescription weight-loss drug made by Roche Holding AG (RHHBY, ROG.VX) while Alli is an over-the-counter version of the same drug marketed by GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK, GSK.LN) at a lower dose.

The FDA said the warning is based on rare reports of liver injury associated with the products. From April 1999 to August 2009 the agency said it received 12 reports of liver injury associated with Xenical from outside the U.S. and one U.S. report associated with Alli. Among those reports, two people died and three people needed a liver transplant.

The FDA said an estimated 40 million people worldwide have used Xenical or Alli.

Both Roche and GlaxoSmithKline noted that the reports of liver injury were rare.

Roche said the company would continue to monitor Xenical’s safety profile and share that information with health regulators.

GlaxoSmithKline said the updated Alli label will advise consumers to “stop use and ask a doctor” if they “develop itching, yellow eyes or skin, dark urine or loss of appetite. There have been rare reports of liver injury in people taking orlistat.” Orlistat is the active ingredient in Xenical and Alli.

The FDA said some patients with severe liver-injury cases also used other drugs or had other conditions that may have contributed to the development of their liver problems.

“At this time, a cause-and-effect relationship of severe liver injury with [Xenical or Alli] use has not been established,” the agency said in a statement.

The FDA, however, said that because of the seriousness of such injury it was adding the information to labels of Xenical and Alli to educate the public about its signs and symptoms.

-By Jennifer Corbett Dooren, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9294; jennifer.corbett@dowjones.com

Try some of EnerHealth Botanicals Natural Weight loss ideas.