Edmond Sun - Aug 23, 2007

Headline: Growing girth affects bottom line

The numbers don’t lie. More than 62 percent of Oklahomans are overweight or obese, just 3 percentage points below the national average.

The growing girth of Americans has been called the next epidemic, resulting in the highest expenditures of all medications aside from those for aging.

One arena that is feeling the effects of obesity is the workplace, where the cost of overweight employees is putting a strain on corporate budgets.

"Being obese definitely affects the bottom line," said Michael Steelman, M.D., who is a nationally noted Bariatric Physician.

"Often there is an increase in absenteeism because of related health issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes and low back sprain, as well as a decrease in mental and physical energy, which affects productivity."

Steelman emphasized that a person may consider themselves overweight but not obese. However, a person who is at least 50 to 100 pounds over an ideal weight for body frame and size is considered obese.

Those extra pounds not only contribute to diseases such as diabetes, he said, but also can raise the risk of stroke, arthritis and cancer of the breast and uterus.

Of the many factors contributing to an unhealthy lifestyle, one need look no further than the workplace.

Stress and irregular working hours had become a way of life for Edmond Memorial High School Principal Kyle Heath. His way of dealing with the overload was food.

"Like with any job, there is stress," Heath said. "It is how you deal with it and I used food while losing focus of taking care of me."

His wife, a fourth-grade teacher at John Ross Elementary School, booked an appointment for him to visit with Dr. Steelman about his weight. Heath began his quest Aug. 8 of last year, weighing 289 pounds. He reached his goal weight of 204 by December, losing nearly 80 pounds. His wife, Georgianne, told him she would join him and went from a size 10 to a size 4. She attributes the drop to exercise.

Now, Heath maintains that weight within a 10-pound range. A former football player and coach, he quit snacking entirely, consumes 20 grams or less of carbohydrates a day and tries to exercise daily.

"I can’t tell you the difference," the father of two teen-agers said. "It’s not about how you look but how you feel – psychologically, emotionally and physically. I have so much more energy now, especially when I get home and can spend some time with my kids."

Having fit, healthy employees impacts the bottom line by saving on health-care costs, said Dr. Steelman. One Oklahoma City company with an eye on the bottom line is planning to support wellness for its employees as a whole. The Morrison Group, a metro area developer of branded coffee programs for convenience stores, is planning to kick off a companywide weight loss competition this fall.

Steelman predicts workplace programs will become more common because companies are tuning in to the idea of wellness. This awareness is due in part to the huge increase in what they are paying for employees who are not well due to obesity and its related health issues.

"Behavior modification is what weight loss is all about," he said. "Concepts like these company programs are the wave of the future when it comes to obesity management. Treatment can, and will, extend to the workplace and to the schools as well."