Business feels the pinch as obesity booms

	Obesity is big for business. It's estimated that the combined direct and indirect cost of our rapidly expanding workforce weighs in at billions of dollars every year, with an outsize share of the burden falling heavily on employers in the form of medical costs, absenteeism and low productivity.

Whilst it's been clear for some years that populations in the western world have been expanding, recent figures from developing nations indicate the truly universal nature of the problem. In fact the number of overweight people in the world has now tipped the scales, overtaking the number classified as underweight.

Globally there are estimated to be more than 1.7 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them categorised as obese. In the United States, a major national health objective for 2010 aims to reduce the prevalence of obesity among US adults to less than 15%, but all signs indicate that the situation is worsening rather than improving.

But when it comes to tackling the problem the buck doesn't stop with the individual. What makes us fat are a wide range of environmental influences including culture and environment. The contribution of workplace initiatives has proven significant in combating the growing burden of obesity. Organisations that have taken the plunge to integrate fitness and lifestyle programmes between nine and five, are achieving real results when it comes to slimming down their workforce.