Not too long ago, people spent their lunch breaks getting lunch. Now a growing number of employers are encouraging staff to spend more time putting themselves through boot-camp drills than filling up on canteen fare. So large a proportion of the population has become seriously overweight that it’s not only making them ill, it’s slowing down the businesses they work for. Extra costs include the fuel used for heavier drivers, dealing with more back injuries in the workplace and an increase in sick leave. Moreover, there are major HR headaches for companies that need fit and healthy staff. And with their hands largely tied when it comes to hiring, firing or disciplining based on size or weight, most businesses are negotiating a legal minefield.

The number of people weighing in at unhealthy levels has more than doubled globally in the past couple of decades to the point where at least 1.3 billion adults are overweight or obese. In the US, almost half the adult population is obese, about a quarter of Australian and British adults are in the same sorry state, and

the epidemic is spreading to developing markets. In Mexico, about a third of adults are obese, and in some Asian and African markets still battling to deal with malnourishment on a massive scale, the rich, city-dwelling minorities are getting dangerously fat.

While the strain that this puts on individuals’ health, life expectancy and public resources is well documented, the cost to a person’s employer is rarely mentioned. A McKinsey report into the non-medical costs associated with obesity puts the annual bill to employers at about $150bn in the US alone. Days off work add up to $30bn, decreased productivity a further $70bn, short-term disability $30bn and extra fuel, electricity and miscellaneous costs – including funerals – another $20bn.

Employers that need strong, fit and able-bodied recruits – and are legally allowed to select on that basis – are finding it tough. Senior voices from within the US armed forces have said that obesity threatens the future health of the nation and the strength of the military; the number of potential recruits failing the physical exam because they’re overweight has jumped a staggering 70% since 1995.

Don Powell, CEO of the American Institute for Preventive Medicine, says it’s widely accepted in the US that an overweight employee will cost a business $400-$500 more a year than someone who’s a healthy weight. Yet for most employers, the option to take size and health into consideration when recruiting doesn’t exist. Laws expressly regarding treatment of people in the workplace in relation to their weight are rare – a few states in the US have obesity discrimination laws, but in much of the rest of the world, obesity occupies a nebulous area nudging disability discrimination and possibly sex discrimination on one hand, and unfair-treatment rules on the other. There’s also a deep social conscience that says it’s just not very nice to be unpleasant to fat people. “It’s a major problem,” says Robin Chater, secretary-general of the Federation of European Employers. “It’s the iceberg of employment law; there’s a lot under the surface and it will have to come out. This needs to be talked about much more.”

The legal director in an international white-collar recruitment agency points out that under the Equality Act passed in the UK in late 2010, British employers are prevented from asking potential recruits health- related questions prior to making a job offer, except in exceptional circumstances where it would be integral to their ability to do the job. “If you’re recruiting a partner for a law firm, their size isn’t really going to be an issue.” Even when fitness is an obvious part of what the job requires, employers can still run into problems. A 160kg postal worker in the UK won his unfair dismissal case, and damages, when he was sacked, despite being so large he struggled to get into his van. And a US police officer of a similar weight, who had trouble standing up after kneeling for target practice, also got his job back.

In most sectors, what someone looks like can be taken into account by employers, but only up to a point, and that point falls well short of getting out the scales. “Employers can demand a certain standard of appearance through a dress code – that’s a perfectly legitimate aim, provided it’s not discriminatory... but you can’t ask for only pretty, blonde, thin girls to sit on your reception desk,” the recruitment company insider says.

Richard Benny, senior lecturer in law and a solicitor in the University of Surrey’s faculty of management and law, says the Equality Act – based largely on directives from the EU – does not specify obesity as a factor in discrimination. But if obesity tended to affect certain ethnic groups, or one gender more than another, recruitment or promotion that took weight into account might trigger a case on those grounds. The waters are no less murky if a staff member becomes so obese that they can no longer do the job they were hired to do. “If the obesity has reached a point where they might meet the definition of a person with a disability, in that case the employer would have to make reasonable adjustments,” Benny says.

Less obvious problems for employers come with tackling bullying associated with a person’s weight; where a joke becomes harassment is not defined, and if the victim ends up on stress leave because of it, the cost to the employer is clear. In France, labour laws include the notion of moral harassment, which includes looks and innuendo. Small but telling surveys in the UK this year have shown three-quarters of travellers want overweight people to pay full price for any extra seats they need, and a majority think that fat people (along with smokers) should pay more towards the cost of their healthcare.

“There’s a grey area in most countries, and not a lot of case law,” notes Chater, who says an EU directive, though it would take years to formulate, would help employers negotiate this tricky path. Size and weight are a real factor in the day-to-day risk assessments employers must deal with. Who do they send up ladders or to work on gantries, knowing that the risk of injured wrists and ankles is higher for the overweight? Are they helping fat staff by taking them off the job or making it worse by putting them behind a desk? Do slimmer staff end up aggrieved? “It’s difficult to know where employers should redeploy or where they have the right to,” he says.

What employers can do is encourage people to run around at lunchtime and eat fewer doughnuts, and with that in mind, a growing number of businesses are investing money in fitness facilities, expert diet and exercise guidance for staff, health checks and even financial incentives aimed at helping them shed their excess weight.

Richard Holmes is managing partner of The Working Health Company, a corporate health consultancy based in the UK whose business has tripled in the past two years. He says employers tend to be most concerned about the health effects of stress, but what employees flock to are the seminars on sleep management and weight loss. The company helps clients organise health checks, workshops and physical team challenges, such as how much weight the company’s entire workforce can lose in a given period. “Quite often for people it’s the initial incentive and structure that encourages them to try something they know they should have been doing for ages,” he says.

Tennessee human relations manager Neil Clark has become an unlikely pin-up for what’s possible in workplace-initiated weight loss, having shed more than half his body weight and taken up long-distance cycling. His employer, home improvement chain Lowe’s, has a multi-million-dollar budget for health programmes, much of it aimed at weight loss. Trucks kitted out as health screening units go from store to store testing staff and giving exercise and nutrition advice. A 12-month, obesity-specific programme, FitLogix, was launched in late 2010, and all employees and their families get subsidised gym membership.

At Vodafone’s offices in England’s self-styled Silicon Valley, C-suiters sweat it out with the rest of the staff at a subsidised on-site gym complex with a physiotherapist, sports masseuse and beautician. A perimeter path in the grounds invites joggers and walkers.

Unsurprisingly, Google is another leader in the provision of fitness services for staff. Helen Tynan, HR manager of its European headquarters, says its offering is aimed at young and already health- conscious staff who are initiating their own group activities, such as early-morning boot camps. The company’s Dublin complex has a gym and studio for fitness classes, massage and nutritionally balanced meals in staff restaurants. WeightWatchers is on site, as are smoking-cessation and cooking courses. Fruit and smoothies are available all day.

Powell, of the American Institute for Preventive Medicine, says employers’ interest in tackling staff obesity was triggered by a US surgeon-general’s report showing the same number of people die prematurely due to obesity as due to tobacco. Some businesses are spending as much as $500 a year per employee to tackle excess weight; they see the returns in lower rates of absenteeism, better productivity and, in a market where employers shoulder the cost of employee health, lower costs. But it doesn’t have to be expensive; decorating stairwells and having pictures and music in them encourages people to eschew the lift. Online wellness challenges spur people on, and fun sporting events get staff involved and can boost morale. Is it more about carrot than stick, then? “They’re using a stick but they’re painting it orange,” Powell says. Companies are inflating their insurance premiums, then offering discounts for non- smokers, people of healthy weight and those on weight-reduction programmes.

In the US, Frank LaPlaca is head of benefits for retail chain Office Depot and oversees a wellness budget of up to $700,000 a year, in addition to what’s spent on the staff gym at its Florida HQ. Staff, between them, have lost more than 1,000 pounds of excess weight in the past 18 months through work-based programmes. Other initiatives include biometric screening and nutrition classes. Does it pay dividends? “I’ve had people say we’ve saved their lives because they didn’t know they had a diabetic problem. One lady was referred to hospital for two days, and they told her she was on the brink of having a major attack, so I know it’s paying off,” LaPlaca says.

Google’s Tynan says a healthy workforce is a happy and productive one. Holmes says that in Britain, where the direct cost of healthcare is not borne by employers, organisations are primarily investing in staff healthcare programmes for more altruistic reasons, “because it’s seen as a good thing to do to engage employees, and the decision makers have a fundamental belief in the value of it. Rather than looking at the direct benefits, there’s just a belief that it will help.”

SIZING UP THE MARKET

How to profit from portliness portliness

When Kim Camarella-Khanbeigi went on holiday with her college friend, she noticed something odd about her friend’s clothes as they unpacked: they had no labels. “She’s a really attractive, curvy girl,” she says. But her friend’s curvy figure meant she couldn’t shop in high- street stores; her clothes were all made by her mother.

The business student spotted a gap in the apparel market that’s been growing as rapidly as the developing world’s waistlines. She launched a small company, Kiyonna Clothing, dedicated to plus-size fashion, including bridal, and will soon expand into swimwear. “It was shocking that the majority of women in the US are plus size, but the minority of stores and designers do anything for them,” she says. Kiyonna is now sold across the US and in more than a dozen international markets, as well as online, where 80% of sales now originate.

The plus-size market for womenswear grew 45% last year and is valued at £3.8bn (€4.3bn) in the UK alone, Mintel research shows. Growth far outstripped the general womenswear market (15%), and menswear too is showing steady growth in non-standard sizes. The ageing population is behind part of this trend, as people tend to put on weight as they get older.

This is a lucrative market to cater to, not just by providing larger clothing, but also specialist equipment and services. A burgeoning plus-size economy has sprung up, capitalising on the fact that while obesity is a huge problem, it’s also a large and growing consumer market. And it’s a connected market, with consumers readily swapping tips and recommendations online.

There are nightclubs that promote themselves as being curve-friendly and a holiday resort in Mexico that, with big rooms, beds, doorways and sunloungers, helps bigger people holiday without discomfort or stares. Dating agencies, personal-hygiene devices, lingerie shops and even children’s car seats all cater for the larger consumer too. Companies that supply equipment to hospitals are doing a booming trade in specialist gear, and there are even places to buy plus-size coffins.

That’s as well as the diet and exercise industry selling to big people who don’t want to be, and pharma companies, which are poised for a windfall if they come up with the perfect easy weight-loss pill.

This is a market with plenty of growing still to come; China is now the epicentre of a type-two diabetes epidemic, with more than 92 million adults aff ected by the disease. India, too, has a growing obesity problem.