Yahoo – AFP,
15 Nov 2014
Washington (AFP) - Obesity among workers in the United States is costing the nation $8.65 billion a year in lost productivity, according to a study released Friday.
A woman
walks by a sign advertising sugary drinks in a Brooklyn neighborhood
with a
high rate of obesity and diabetes on June 11, 2013 in New York (AFP
Photo/Spencer Platt)
|
Washington (AFP) - Obesity among workers in the United States is costing the nation $8.65 billion a year in lost productivity, according to a study released Friday.
The study
by Yale University researchers is the first to give state-level estimates of
the cost of worker absenteeism due to obesity.
Those costs
ranged from $14.4 million in Wyoming to $907 million in California, it said,
adding that obesity accounts for 9.3 percent of all absenteeism costs
nationwide.
"Understanding
all economic costs of obesity, including lost productivity, is critical for
policymakers working on obesity prevention at any level," said lead author
Tatiana Andreyeva.
The report
said overweight people often had to miss work for health reasons.
"Quantifying
not just obesity-related health care costs, but also economic costs, is
essential for informed decision-making," she added in a statement.
Nearly 35
percent of American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, which estimates the annual medical cost of obesity at
$147 billion.
The Yale
study appears in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
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