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Health and safetyLettersWellbeingOccupational Health

Credible research abounds on obesity/absence link

by Personnel Today 8 Oct 2007
by Personnel Today 8 Oct 2007

Richard Essery may be right in arguing that his sedentary lifestyle is a personal matter, but he is wrong in his assertion that there is no credible research linking obesity and increased workplace absence (Letters, Personnel Today, 11 September).

A quick search on the authoritative clinical database PubMed returns:

  • a Dutch study suggesting that obese staff are absent 14 days more each year than their non-obese counterparts (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Sept 2007 49(9): 975-80)
  • a US study linking obesity and the incidence of short-term workplace disability (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Nov 2006 48(11): 1118-24)
  • an epidemiological study of 10,825 employed adults, which shows that obese employees were more than twice as likely to experience high-level absenteeism, and 1.49 times more likely to suffer from moderate absenteeism than lean employees (American Journal of Health Promotion, Jan-Feb 1998 12(3): 202-7).

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There are plenty more, but isn’t that enough ‘balanced, objective, credible academics’ to convince most people that there is some sort of link?

Mark Crail
Managing editor,
IRS

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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