Long working hours, sedentary lifestyle, stress are all contributing to a growing percentage of obese men and women in the workforce today. From a survey done across 1000 working men and women in corporates in Mumbai, it is estimated that 23% of women and 19% of men in the workforce are obese.
Dr Manish Motwani, leading weight loss surgeon at Aastha Healthcare in Mulund, Mumbai says “ Its time companies take action to ensure a healthier lifestyle for their employees. This growing number of obese employees is taking a huge toll on the health of the employees. Diseases like Type 2 Diabetes, Heart diseases are becoming more common in younger age groups due to obesity. Not only does obesity take a toll on health of employees but even for employers. Obese people are more likely to take leaves than normal weight people because of health issues, eventually hampering the productivity of an individual”
From the study, it was evident that employees blame their weight issues on long working hours and travel, and lack of time for concentrating on their health. Approximately 73% of the obese employees said that work pressure leads to binge eating and hence weight gain. Obesity incidence was also higher with employees at senior level, with 37% of director level employees being obese. They attributed this to work pressure, travel and sedentary lifestyles.
Dr Manish Motwani says “ We have seen increased footfall of obese working men and women at out hospital. Mostly, they gain weight in the first 2-3 years of starting out with their jobs. Due to pressure to perform they ignore their health and have considerable weight gain of 20-25 kgs in just 2 years, which keeps increasing with time and age. Bariatric surgery is a good option for weight loss, and increasingly we have seen corporate employees go for surgery for weight loss. Companies should also promote and provide insurance cover for employees willing to undergo bariatric surgery for weight loss”
“ One of our patients was a woman aged 48 years, who weighed 115 kgs, with a BMI of 42.5. She was working in an MNC, and was at a senior level and had to travel a lot for her demanding job. With time, she also started having joint pains and breathlessness and then she came for Bariatric surgery at Aastha healthcare. She underwent Sleeve Gastrectomy, and within the next 6 months her BMi came down to 35.5, and her joint pains were significantly lesser. She now has a healthy BMI of 25.5 two years post surgery, she even got another promotion at her company and lives a happy and healthy life”.
Survey was conducted across 10 corporates in Mumbai, with a 1000 respondents across the 10 corporates. Corporates who took the survey were: TCS, Cannon, Reliance Communications, Power Grid, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, Wipro, L&T and Citibank
Survey was conducted through an online portal on which the responses were captured. The survey was based on questionnaire consisting of multiple choice questions. Questions included were: Age, Sex, Designation, Years of experience, weight, height, work profile, stress level at work, travel time, reasons attributed towards weight gain (incase of weight gain), time devoted towards health/ exercise, and frequency of eating out for work reasons.
The results of the survey were analysed using basic data analytics techniques like chi square, correlation and frequency distribution to calculate percentages.