Study reveals fat people have 13x number of lost work days, cost employers more than normal people

[Geekbabe]

The only problem with thiskind of thinking is that it's a slippery slope.first they come for the smokers,then they come for the obese..eventually they will find a reason to come for you.

My dollars probably subsidize a lot of things that I don't use/don't approve of but imho that is a fair price to pay for living in the freest nation in the world.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I must be another exception. I've used 1 sick day at my current job in 7 years, and have taken off a grand total of 1/2 personal day. On my former job, I called in sick 2 times in 20 years, and left sick once.

Count me in as another exception. I'm certainly no lightweight, but I haven't taken a sick day in years. In fact, my attendance record is much better than most of my skinnier and healthier coworkers.... Probably because I'm not hurting myself during ski trips or soccer matches like they are.

Take that, you stringbeans!

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: Geekbabe
The only problem with thiskind of thinking is that it's a slippery slope.first they come for the smokers,then they come for the obese..eventually they will find a reason to come for you.

My dollars probably subsidize a lot of things that I don't use/don't approve of but imho that is a fair price to pay for living in the freest nation in the world.

i agree, some of the responses in this thread are scary. some are borderline Facshism and some are down right communist in nature.

for the record the sickest "healty" person i ever met was a Lt i had. she was a strict vegan, ran every fricken day but when she caught a cold it nearly killed her. she would get put on quarters (meaning she gets to stay home) for a week at a time.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
More companies should consider building in house work out rooms, basketball courts, etc. to promote exercise. If that's not possible, offer to help pay for a gym membership (like $20/month or something).

Ummm very few people work for companies large enough to even think about a capital expenture like that besides the cost you have to have the space. the printing company i worked for was in a industrial strip mall and the only thing the owner cared about was how much his printers were producing. if there was space enough for a gym he would have put a big ass heidleberg 4 color press there instead. also as a fellow business owner i dont care if your fat, skinny or what ever as long as you can do the job. its not my job as the business owner to provide you with a freaken gym to work out in. you get 2 ten minute breakes and 30 minute lunch break. you tell me when you are to go work out.

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: Flyback
If you're going to discriminate, why stop with things that people can control? Why does that matter? I'd support discrimination towards obese people if we could do it for everyone.

If your family has a history of cancer, diabetes or heart disease, then why can't employers selectively hire and fire you based on that criteria? The end result is the same: you cost an organization more money with your sick leave.

Who really cares if you had choice in it or not, that is no excuse and we shouldn't coddle people who make the species weaker. Life ain't fair and you got a crappy hand of cards. So what.

Your reasoning has logic and wisdom behind it. You are close to the only true solution to this problem.

The "weak" will still remain a drain on society. They must be eliminated. Logic dictates this. It is the only true solution.

I alluded to this in my first post in this thread. I was told that I was on a slippery-slope. That I was way out of bounds.

But you have done well grasshopper.

Kill the weak so that the strong shall live!!!!!!!!!!!! Long live the master race!!!!!!!!

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Kelemvor

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: child of wonder
More companies should consider building in house work out rooms, basketball courts, etc. to promote exercise. If that's not possible, offer to help pay for a gym membership (like $20/month or something).

What good would that do? It's a known fact in the fitness industry that most people with gym memberships NEVER GO. Hell, that's where they make their profits. People like me, who go 3-5 times a week, are their money-losers.

People don't go because they have to GO somewhere. If there was a gym right at your place of employment, you could work out at lunch or right after work and not have extra time to drive to a gym and things like that. I'd love that.

For me it's 15 minutes to the gym, 15 minutes back. 5-10 for the whole time. That's a lot of wasted time. If I could work out right at work, it's 0 travel time and probably less locker room time because it'd be not very crowded. Definitely a time saver.

Huh? That's not the case at all. You put a treadmill in most people's homes and they still wouldn't use it. That's a proven fact.

And 15 minutes is "a lot of wasted time?" What would have been doing otherwise? Watching TV? Texting your friends? Posting on the forums? Fapping? God forbid we cut into those valuable uses of time!

fapping is very good exercise

 

[Number1]

Originally posted by: Flyback
If you're going to discriminate, why stop with things that people can control? Why does that matter? I'd support discrimination towards obese people if we could do it for everyone.

If your family has a history of cancer, diabetes or heart disease, then why can't employers selectively hire and fire you based on that criteria? The end result is the same: you cost an organization more money with your sick leave.

Who really cares if you had choice in it or not, that is no excuse and we shouldn't coddle people who make the species weaker. Life ain't fair and you got a crappy hand of cards. So what.

Good point! Spread the discrimination.

Some of the elite posters in here spend way to much time sitting in front of a monitor spewing hatred against others they perceive as inferiors.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: child of wonder
More companies should consider building in house work out rooms, basketball courts, etc. to promote exercise. If that's not possible, offer to help pay for a gym membership (like $20/month or something).

What good would that do? It's a known fact in the fitness industry that most people with gym memberships NEVER GO. Hell, that's where they make their profits. People like me, who go 3-5 times a week, are their money-losers.

People don't go because they have to GO somewhere. If there was a gym right at your place of employment, you could work out at lunch or right after work and not have extra time to drive to a gym and things like that. I'd love that.

For me it's 15 minutes to the gym, 15 minutes back. 5-10 for the whole time. That's a lot of wasted time. If I could work out right at work, it's 0 travel time and probably less locker room time because it'd be not very crowded. Definitely a time saver.

I can say for sure that I'm more likely to work out because my office has a gym. But I can also say with quite a bit of certainty that my employer did not have altruistic motives for putting it in - I'm sure they saved on health insurance premiums. I work out daily, because it's convenient to do so and it keeps me at work until the rush hour traffic dies down (I live 4 miles from work, but I HATE driving in rush hour traffic).

But I'm not a fatty, and none of the overweight people in my office use the gym.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: child of wonder
More companies should consider building in house work out rooms, basketball courts, etc. to promote exercise. If that's not possible, offer to help pay for a gym membership (like $20/month or something).

Ummm very few people work for companies large enough to even think about a capital expenture like that besides the cost you have to have the space. the printing company i worked for was in a industrial strip mall and the only thing the owner cared about was how much his printers were producing. if there was space enough for a gym he would have put a big ass heidleberg 4 color press there instead. also as a fellow business owner i dont care if your fat, skinny or what ever as long as you can do the job. its not my job as the business owner to provide you with a freaken gym to work out in. you get 2 ten minute breakes and 30 minute lunch break. you tell me when you are to go work out.

It doesn't need to be elaborate. Ours is the size of 3 individual offices, and even then it's bigger than it needs to be. It has a Nautilus-type setup with 4 stations, a treadmill and an exercise bike (all gym-quality equipment, not the stuff you'd typically find in a home). The equipment cost $10,000, plus probably the same amount to put the bathroom in. With 30 people in the office the company is spending a few million a year on salaries and benefits - $25k for a gym is a drop in the bucket, especially if it saves you money on insurance premiums. I know many companies don't have room for one, but it's a great perk.

 

[Mill]

It is a more complex problem than this. What about when we find genes that predispose certain people to higher rates of cancer or other high mortality diseases? Obviously obesity is a problem. Most obese people have a much more significant amount of healthy problems than those who are in a decent weight range. It isn't just taking time off or being sick -- it is the health care costs that they cause by having more diseases, more illnesses, and a higher rate of serious problems.

There's going to be a slippery slope here. Smokers already face higher premium -- some former addicts and alcohol abusers do as well. Eventually the healthcare system is going to buckle because not everyone is predisposed to the same level of healthiness. Some people are a lot more unhealthy than others -- even if they are not fat or never smoked. Somehow that risk has to spread around. Either you can raise premiums for all or you can raise premiums for those who are at a higher risk.

Additionally, we cannot forget that we are extending people's life cycles beyond what the human body was once capable of. Until evolution plays a role (which is highly unlikely to happen in our lifetime), healthcare costs are going to rise for all of us. Not just the elderly that live past their body's ideal age, but also the younger who no longer succumb to diseases that killed off the weak in the past. Congenital defects and other problems can now be treated with surgery, and other syndromes and diseases that once caused deaths as an infant or teenager are now being effectively treated -- but to the extent that they just prolong life by a decade or two.

What about the amount of people who are alive now due to vaccination programs and better preventative health care? We've got millions of people walking around that would have never lived had health care not advanced. By the same token, we've got millions of weaker people walking around, because they survived due to vaccinations and advanced medical care. This isn't even counting the much higher survival rate of those with cancer, severe trauma, or other maladies.

Let's face it -- rising health costs are not just a factor of malpratice suits, crappy doctors, overbilling and graft, fat people, smokers, or any one cause. It is a multitude of causes, and there's no system out there that is going to be a 100% fix. All we can do is ride it out while healthcare advances even more.

 

[AreaCode707]

Before anybody decides to disregard my argument in favor of a personal attack, my height is 5'6" and my weight is about 120 lbs at the moment. I'm also 23 and in the corporate world. Now on to the point.

Just a word for the fact that correlation does not equal causation. There can be third elements that would cause both obesity and loss of work time. I have rheumatoid arthritis, for instance, and I know that many people who have it can suffer from weight problems, partially because of the difficulty exercising when you can barely move, partially from the steroids used to treat the disease, and for other reasons. The arthritis and related problems have caused me to take close to a month off work at one point (neck surgery).

One of the issues with the statistics as they are quoted is that they look at number of hours off for a population of people rather than average numbers of hours off per person. If you have 10 people with no time off and 1 person with a year on disability, the method of determining your statistic will make a big difference in the way your stats look.

 

[RallyMaster]

Kill them all. We don't need fat people.

 

[us3rnotfound]

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
Kill them all. We don't need fat people.

you've been k'd.

 

[Chaotic42]

Is saw a study saying that fat people are also more likely to eat their coworkers in situations where Zombie former US treasurers are holding the world hostage with nuclear missiles filled with palm fronds and everyone's trapped at the office.

I think it was on Geraldo.

 

[jinduy]

therefore fat people should get a proportionate amount of pay cut just like how they should pay double for plane tickets

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: jinduy
therefore fat people should get a proportionate amount of pay cut just like how they should pay double for plane tickets

They're also affecting time for those around them. If you spend an hour talking to a fat person, more than an hour will pass for the others in the office.

 

[ric1287]

so they are basing this entire study using the crap BMI calculator? Doesn't that just mean that there are tons (no pun intended) of 'obese' people for the study?

I am 6'3" and BMI has 150 listed as a 'healthy' weight. If i weighed 150 lbs, i would break in half if i bent over.

EDIT- nvm, i guess if you have BMI over 40, your a load regardless of height.

 

[Xstatic1]

it's not just people who are overweight...it's those who think it's okay to have multiple health conditions. you don't know how many people i've sat next to in the doctor's waiting room and the other patients start verbally listing all their conditions to other patients like they're proud of it. changing the mindset of overweight and these ppl who are okay having x conditions and taking a slew of meds is gonna take an act of gawd.

what needs to happen is that health care insurance should change in such a way that it reimburses the premiums of the healthy workers. so like if the workers (& their families) have healthy bloods test and get their annual physicals and don't utilize let's say $2,000 worth of annual medical expenses, then the healthy workers deserve to have a portion of the premiums they paid into their health insurance returned back to them. it's the unhealthy folks, obese & otherwise, that drive up the costs of insurance for everyone.

 

[Gulzakar]

Honestly, in modern society...fast food culture mixed with mostly office workers...how can most people not be overweight?

Here's some news for you, when people work full time, have a mortgage, and raise kids, they don't exactly have the energy to go to the gym. That's life.

The more likely cause of work loss is emotional damage. It's really perpetual. People don't WANT to be fat! Why is it some people can have an occasional drink and some people can't? You can't hold anything different for obese people. If anything, it's even more difficult (you still need to eat).

So where does that leave said individual? He/She tries to lose and some twerpy _ucknut makes snide remarks and pretends to know everything about the universe. Obviously there are those people who have little regard for their health, but for christ sake, don't lump everyone into one category.

Being fat doesn't always equate to being lazy, but being fat does equate to a constant emotional barrage of not feeling good enough. Rather than judge people, try looking at yourself. Does pointing out all the overweight people in your office make you feel special? Has it occurred to you that maybe these people would like to try exercising, but the thought of having some smug prick eye them isn't pleasing?

It can start from a variety of things: Genetics, childhood (some parents feed their kids whatever they like), stress from school, stress from a relationship...bottom line, once it begins, it's like a rollercoaster.

 

[AreaCode707]

Originally posted by: Xstatic1
it's not people who are overweight...it's those who think it's okay to have multiple health conditions. you don't know how many people i've sat next to in the doctor's waiting room and the other patients start verbally listing all their conditions to other patients like they're proud of it. changing the mindset of overweight and these ppl who are okay having x conditions and taking a slew of meds is gonna take an act of gawd.

what needs to happen is that health care insurance should change in such a way that it reimburses the premiums of the healthy workers. so like if the workers (& their families) have healthy bloods test and get their annual physicals and don't utilize let's say $2,000 worth of annual medical expenses, then the healthy workers deserve to have a portion of the premiums they paid into their health insurance returned back to them. it's the unhealthy folks, obese & otherwise, that drive up the costs of insurance for everyone.

I think you're missing the entire point of insurance. Everybody pays into the pool, the people who need it take out of the pool (more than they paid in, that's why you buy health insurance instead of paying for your costs yourself) and the insurance company bets that they come out ahead.

Plus, people who are healthy are not necessarily taking better care of themselves than others, they're just lucky. Those of us with genetic disorders (rheumatoid arthritis for me, as I mentioned above) don't need to be financially punished for our already bad luck.

 

[Xstatic1]

Originally posted by: HotChic

Originally posted by: Xstatic1
it's not just people who are overweight...it's those who think it's okay to have multiple health conditions. you don't know how many people i've sat next to in the doctor's waiting room and the other patients start verbally listing all their conditions to other patients like they're proud of it. changing the mindset of overweight and these ppl who are okay having x conditions and taking a slew of meds is gonna take an act of gawd.

what needs to happen is that health care insurance should change in such a way that it reimburses the premiums of the healthy workers. so like if the workers (& their families) have healthy bloods test and get their annual physicals and don't utilize let's say $2,000 worth of annual medical expenses, then the healthy workers deserve to have a portion of the premiums they paid into their health insurance returned back to them. it's the unhealthy folks, obese & otherwise, that drive up the costs of insurance for everyone.

I think you're missing the entire point of insurance. Everybody pays into the pool, the people who need it take out of the pool (more than they paid in, that's why you buy health insurance instead of paying for your costs yourself) and the insurance company bets that they come out ahead.

Plus, people who are healthy are not necessarily taking better care of themselves than others, they're just lucky. Those of us with genetic disorders (rheumatoid arthritis for me, as I mentioned above) don't need to be financially punished for our already bad luck.

first off, i had left out a word ("just") in my original posting.

i understand insurance. maybe i should have been more clear that those who work for private employers (not talking about public entities) and are relatively healthy or not utilizing their health care benefits are the ones being penalized. and that's why i brought up workers getting reimbursed (at the end of the year) a portion of health care premiums if they have healthy bloods test and get their annual physicals and don't utilize let's say $2,000 worth of annual medical expenses.

i've about to make-up some monthly premium amounts. employee-only health care costs $300 monthly; employee + spouse costs $400, employee + family costs $550. for ease, i'll use the employee-only cost of $300 monthly ($3,600 yearly). using my example of $2,000 worth of annual med expenses, if a relatively healthy person who goes in to see their doc twice a year (office visit cost = $100 x 2), and their blood work = $500 x 2=$1,000. total medical expense for that year = $200 + $1000 = $1,200...then wouldn't it be reasonable that the worker be reimbursed a portion of what they paid for the year ($3,600)? i am not saying the full amount ($3,600), but 10..15...20% would be cool.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: icelazer
Not to get off topic or anything (Hah!) but I wonder if anyone has ever made the correlation that due to the type of jobs that the US is focued on (service-oriented/technology/etc) combined with the fact that US workers spend more hours at work on average than a majority of other countries, that some aspect of life (in this case health and fitness) has to suffer. There are only so many hours in a week, between longer work hours and less vacation time, it seems that both health and sleep have been slipping as priorities.

I mentioned this in the other thread and got flamed (trolled) for blaming all of the worlds problems on big business. There are obviously a lot of pieces that create the whole picture, but the future of jobs (in not just the US but the world) is definitely a large piece of it. Once you enter the work force, your job is where you spend a large portion of your week (The other largest portion being sleeping).

It is not just long work hours either, but the style of work. There are jobs out there that actually give physical exercise. But if your job does not (every desk job ever in existence) then you have to somehow segment your day into getting your exercise elsewhere. And that can become difficult. And the longer you spend in a job that doesn't give you exercise and the healthier the get, the less likely you are to switch to a job that has manual labor/exercise somehow involved in it because you become the unlikely candidate for the position.

 

[intogamer]

So what happens if the boss is fat

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: intogamer
So what happens if the boss is fat

Umm, duh, - it's OK for the boss. However, there'll be big changes for everyone else. In a US owned company anyway.

Foreign owned companies would lead by example.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

The study could be flawed, it might not be a matter of weight that is causing a problem, it could be a lack of exercise. Over the years the only time I ever got a cold or any sort of illness was when I stopped going to the gym.