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Binge-Eating Hospital Employees Cost Big Bucks

 |  By John Commins  
   June 11, 2012

While there is not a definitive link showing that healthcare workers are more susceptible to overweight and obesity than other workers, some studies suggest that is the case.

Empirically it resonates because long hours, irregular work schedules, and on-the-job stress, which are virtually written into the job descriptions of many healthcare workers, have been identified as drivers of overweight and obesity.

Those stresses and their cumulative effect on employee productivity and healthcare costs is another reason why the wellness movement has grown tremendously in the healthcare sector.

When employees are screened for wellness measures such as blood sugar, body mass index, and hypertension, experts say employers should also include confidential questions about binge eating, which may be more prevalent than previously thought, evidence suggests.

A study from a Johnson & Johnson affiliate Wellness & Prevention, Inc., reviewed health risk assessment responses from 46,818 employees and estimates that a company with 1,000 employees loses nearly $108,000 each year because of productivity losses associated with binge eating. Researchers at W&P said 9.4% of the employees in the survey self-reported as binge eaters, making it the third-highest health risk affecting productivity behind depression and stress. 

In other words, 94 employees in a 1,000-employee workforce that is earning the national average salary of $44,000 are each costing their employers more than $1,100 each year in lost productivity in the form of added healthcare costs, lost work days, and subpar productivity while at work; aka "presenteeism." 

Richard Bedrosian, W&P's director of Behavioral Health and Solution Development, says binge eating can afflict anyone, but is three times more common among obese employees (17.8%) than among non-obese employees (5.5%). A separate study from W&P showed that the incidence of binge eating rose in proportion to employees' BMI. "If you look at Class 3 obesity, almost 28% of those people were binge eaters, but not everyone who is obese is a binge eater. Moreover, there are people at normal weight who are binge eaters," he says.

Binge eating is a disorder that closely resembles an addiction, but Bedrosian says, it is complicated. "That is not settled, whether that is literally an addiction the way someone is addicted to a drug," he says. "But the behavior resembles what [addicted] people would do. Let's take a non-physical addiction, someone with a gambling problem. That would be similar because people use any kind of compulsive behavior to manage negative emotions."

"The biggest difference in terms of the recovery is if you have an alcohol problem the solution is you simply stop drinking," he says. "The person who is trying to recover from binge eating has to develop a better relationship with food, because obviously they cannot stop eating."

Binge eating can be easier to conceal from family, friends, and coworkers because it is often done alone, and in private. "It is eating when uncomfortably full, eating when not hungry, eating when emotional. It is that feeling of loss of control that separates it from just average overeating," Bedrosian says. "A good example for binge eating could be something that somebody does late at night after supper. They are alone in their apartment, they open the refrigerator and there is a quart of ice cream. They finish it and look in the cupboard and there is half a box of cookies and they finish the cookies."

While he hasn't seen any data to indicate that binge eating is prevalent in healthcare occupations Bedrosian says in "any population where there are more obese people there are probably more binge eaters."

Bedrosian identifies "two pathways" into binge eating.

"One of them is people eating to manage negative emotions or stress. When any group of people is under more stress then you are probably going to see an increase in all of the kinds of behaviors that people use to manage it," he says.

The other pathway is yo-yo dieting. "For some people, going on restrictive diets, or going long periods of time without eating or restricting calories actually triggers a binge," he says.

Identifying eating disorders is critical to any weight management program.

"If you are binge eating it is going to be very hard if not impossible to manage weight without getting that behavior under control," Bedrosian says. "Any kind of gastroenterological surgeries that are performed, most of those programs require people to get screened for eating disorders. If they detect that they treat it before the do any surgery."     

Bedrosian says the best way to identify binge eating is to ask employees in confidential health assessments. "I don't think an employer especially should be directly questioning people," he says. "If there is a health risk appraisal people can take this and be secure that the information is confidential and will not go to their employer or anyone else they don't want to reveal it to. That is the best way to get people to open up."

"It could be in a computer-based survey where person gets one-on-one feedback that they don't necessarily share or a clinical interview with healthcare provider," he says. "What I'm suggesting is you give people different ways of sharing that information. If someone doesn't necessarily want to come forward then educating about binge eating can be part of the curriculum in a weight management program."   

John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.

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