obesity

According to the CDC and the Surgeon General’s report, millions of Americans have diseases that could have been entirely prevented with regular physical exercise. The numbers are overwhelming: 13.5 Americans have coronary heart disease, 8 million Americans have adult onset diabetes, 95,000 of us are diagnosed with colon cancer every year, and about 1.5 million people experience a heart attack in a year.

One of the most effective ways for your employees to lose weight is to practice portion control.

Obesity is a nationwide epidemic.  Type II Diabetes is rampant among our children.  According to the CDC, 1 in 3 children born in the United States will become diabetic.  A smart company knows it’s not enough to focus on the individual employee; we need to empower them to take what they learn about wellness at work home to their families.  There are some meaningful changes that will make tremendous improvements in the culture of health in your employees’ h

In my last blog I talked about how obesity starves your company’s bottom line.  But I also wonder how you take a population of people who are wired differently than normal weight people and convince them to make a change?  People like to make their own choices, even if they are bad ones. Obese Americans know that excess weight reduces their lifespan by about 2.5 years, yet obesity rates continue to rise.

According to the Director of the C.D.C, Thomas Frieden: “Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they’re getting worse rapidly.”  This statement is backed up by numbers published in a study in the journal Health Affairs.