New CDC site aims to reduce workplace obesity

Jul. 3rd, 2009 by Andrew Van Dam
Filed under: Government, Hot Health Headline 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a Web site called “LEAN Works” as part of a campaign to work with employers to reduce workplace obesity. In CDC-speak, LEAN stands for Leading Employees to Activity and Nutrition.
leanworks

The campaign aims to speak in a language business can understand, emphasizing the negative impact big waistlines can have on a company’s bottom line. They even provide an obesity cost calculator, which will allow any HR department creepy enough to have every employee’s body mass index on file to calculate the precise projected return on investment yielded by an obesity intervention program.

The CDC also gives tips on how to set up a workplace obesity intervention, how to keep the momentum going and how to measure whether or not it’s producing any results.

(Hat tip to the NPR Health Blog)

AHCJ Resource
Covering Obesity: A Guide for Reporters

Covering ObesityThe prospect of covering such a broad, engaging and important topic as obesity can be overwhelming. This guide, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is designed to help journalists cover a wide range of stories, whether writing on deadline or researching a multipart series. It offers assistance on calculating body mass index, finding obesity statistics on the state level, gauging the quality of school district wellness policies, finding innovative school nutrition policies and much more. Supplementary material can be found on this page.

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Comments

2 Comments on New CDC site aims to reduce workplace obesity

  1. Miriam Gordon on Fri, 3rd Jul 2009 2:01 PM

    2. I just posted this comment on the NPR Health blog and would like to reiterate it here.

    While I am all for promoting healthier lifestyles in the workplace, it’s not nearly as simple as putting down a donut and taking the stairs. Most employers won’t see this as their concern, other than what it costs them in health insurance. Therefore, if employers follow the lead the CDC is providing on its LEANworks website, in reality, most of them will just conclude that it’s easier to fire fat people and not hire them in the first place. This raises extremely serious discrimination issues. The CDC website is highly inappropriate, by implying that it is realistic to lose a lot of weight and keep it off, which is completely disproven scientifically. It also implies that fat people should be ashamed of themselves for being fat, which is unconscionable and not helpful.

    The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University is currently studying the CDC LEANworks website and will be commenting on it soon. We can not, as a society, continue to demonize fat people. Behind the demonization of fat people is the well entrenched but completely irrational belief that fat people can be thin if they want to. Nothing is further from the truth. It is possible to be fat, fit and healthy (a lot more possible than losing and keeping off weight).

  2. Michelle on Fri, 26th Feb 2010 2:14 PM

    3. I support the effort CDC puts out to start a website that addresses the correlation between obesity and the workplace. Sadly, the world revolves around money and if cost effectiveness is a selling point for companies to adopt healthier environments they should use it. To use say that companies will fire or refuse to hire “fat people” is the same as saying company will not give same career opportunities to people with disabilities.

    CDC has not implied anywhere that they expect people to “lose a lot of weight and keep it off.” If anything, CDC has an pretty good idea of how effective their program will be. They had enough evidence to publish and show everyone their program but comments like this shut the site down. The truth is, the public always wants one side or the other and little details will completely stop initiatives like this. CDC doesn’t have the get the right the first time every time, they should be allowed to make mistakes and fix them as long as they adhere to the main goal. Perhaps we should all have a little more faith and a little less criticism in what the government does for all of us.

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