a diversityinc investigative report
on the Entire Country TAKING ITS TOLL
WHILE BLACKS, LATINOS and young children suffer
the harshest effects of this poor nutrition, obesity and
food-related death and disease, the obesity epidemic
affects the entire nation.
Current projections for healthcare costs attributable
to obesity and overweight are that they will more than
double every decade, according to the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation report.
“By 2030 … healthcare costs attributable to obesity
and overweight could range from $860 billion to $956
billion, which would account for 15. 8 to 17. 6 percent of
total healthcare costs, or one in every six dollars spent
on healthcare,” the report says.
And the indirect costs of overweight and obesity
often fall most heavily on employers in the form of
increased absenteeism, disability, presenteeism (when
employees come to work in spite of illness, which can
have similar negative repercussions on business perfor-
mance) and workers’ compensation.
; Obese employees cost private employers approximately $45 billion a year as a result of medical
expenses and excessive absenteeism.
; Obese people pay 36 percent more for healthcare
and 77 percent more for medication when compared
with healthy-weight people.
; Obese workers had 183. 63 lost workdays per 100 full-time employees, compared with healthy-weight workers,
who had 14. 19 lost workdays per 100 full-time employees.
According to the report:
Industry UNDER FIRE
Facing scrutiny from nutrition groups, public-health profession- als, and state and national legisla- tors sponsoring bills that could
have a powerful impact on its business, “Big
Food,” a pejorative term often applied to
the fast-food, snack and beverage industry
in general, has gone on the defensive. The
industry is devoting considerable resources
to public relations as its primary weapon to
influence public opinion and neutralize calls
for government intervention.
Collectively, the industry asserts that it offers consumers a broad range of serving sizes and choices that
can be combined to create meal combinations that fall
within recommended guidelines for calories, fat, sodium
and other important nutrients. It says it offers nutrition
information on its menus, emphasizes moderation and
physical activity and does not encourage consumers to
overuse its products.
“To suggest that any single business or group of
businesses is responsible for the obesity problem is
at best inaccurate, and, at worst, irresponsible,” says
McDonald’s spokesperson Danya Proud. “We’re proud of
the taste, quality, value and variety our menu provides.”
For its part, Burger King says that “it’s committed to
helping our guests eat and live better by promoting bal-
anced diets and active lifestyle choices.”
FOLLOWING BIG TOBACCO’S PLAYBOOK
YALE PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR KELLY BROWNELL
and Kenneth E. Warner, a prominent tobacco researcher
who is dean of the University of Michigan’s School of
Public Health, recently published a report comparing
the legal, political and business strategies employed by
“Big Food” and concluded that they are currently using
the same tactics and strategies employed by U.S. tobacco
giants when they were trying to fend off regulators and
plaintiff lawyers.
“Popular books like ‘Fast Food Nation’ and movies like ‘Super Size Me’ have sensitized the public to
industry practices. In turn, the industry has had to
react to claims that it seduces children into a lifestyle of
unhealthy eating, infiltrates schools, buys loyalty from
scientists and pressures administration officials into
accepting weak and ineffective nutrition policies,” write
Brownell and Warner. Brownell is also director of the
Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
According to Brownell and Warner, “the tobacco
industry had a playbook, a script, that emphasized
personal responsibility, paying scientists who delivered
research that instilled doubt, criticizing the ‘junk’ sci-
ence that found harms associated with smoking, making
self-regulatory pledges, lobbying with massive resources
to stifle government action, introducing ‘safer’ products,
and simultaneously manipulating and denying both the
addictive nature of their products and their marketing to
children.”
The tobacco industry analogy is inescapable, they
note. “Seducing children? There is no better example
than Joe Camel. Buying the loyalty of scientists? It
June 2010 137
