Closed disk of socioeconomic disadvantages Essay

While socioeconomic inequalities are often listed for causing obesity, the latter itself may become a serious reason for the same disparities. It is investigated that obese people face distinctive disadvantages in employment. First of all, these disadvantages are motivated by social stigmas and subjective rejection based on aesthetic, cultural and physical perception. However, rejection is often motivated by even more serious outcomes. Business costs appear to increase at all levels of social life up to corporations and governments. The obese employees are reported to use disability leave more frequently, and file worker’s compensation claims twice more often that others (Ostbye, Dement and Krause, 2007 p.773). Lost work days increase because of falls and lifting injuries. For that, in Alabama workers are charged $25 each month if they do not care of their excess weight and do nothing to improve their health. It may look like discrimination, but to certain extent it is fair, while other counterparts are not obliged to suffer from them. On average, obese women have 6% and men have 3% less productivity at working place than their colleagues. In the Unites States from 40 billion to $100 billion are spent on diet products, and medical costs make up about $78.5 billion (that is 9.1% of all medical expenditures). Further, obesity creates new complexities for airlines which have to spend more fuel and pressures to shift seating width which developed into US$275 million expenditures (Bartley, 2003 p. 33).
What is more, obesity is reported to have a negative impact on the environment. The matter is, individual carbon footprints increase because of unhealthy lifestyles, and greenhouse gas emissions grow proportionally. Herein, people with overweight and obesity need to eat more, while food industry actually accounts for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Further, pollution also comes from driving, as walking is less popular with obese people.